We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kayci Chisholm. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kayci below.

Kayci, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

The story behind my mission comes from within my childhood. When I first moved to Florida from New York I was very different. I saw my mind being free and creative. Not following anyone’s footsteps. Not many of my classmates accepted me for who I was. At a young age moving from school to school especially to a different state it was traumatizing being bullied. All you want to do is feel accepted. After going through My childhood years my personality always kept bursting through with positivity. I always kept a light within my soul being unapologetically myself. My personality always has a euphoric feeling. My friend ended up creating my name KAYPHORIA. My brand is encouraging others to love themselves for who they are within their body, mind, and soul. I wanted to be able to have everyone get an opportunity to experience the fashion industry truly loving yourself and being confident. A lot of my models and people I have worked with said how much KAYPHORIA X has been such a positive change within their lives boosting their confidence and mental health. Being able to put forth to accomplish this mission has motivated me to keep going to have more people know about KAYPHORIA X.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

In the beginning, I always knew I wanted to do fashion design. This is something that I was sure within myself about. Being a young girl filled with shyness and anxiety I believe that I was not prepared to tap into my creative ability at the time. I was scared to be different and speak my mind. But my parents encouraged me to go down a different career. I completed my undergraduate at Tuskegee University with my PreVet and Animal Science degree. Attending Tuskegee University my junior year I crossed Rave Revue Modeling troupe. Being a part of this organization helped me gain confidence and a foundation within myself. I didn’t feel lost or incomplete.

Being a part of this organization I felt like I could do whatever I set my mind to. I started KAYPHORIA as my platform name for YouTube but at the time going through the fashion industry as a new model I wanted to change how people saw me and everyone else who wasn’t accepting towards the fashion industry standards. I wanted to be a part of the change of the fashion industry accepting everyone within their ethnicity, different shapes, sizes, and genders within your sexuality. But I also wanted to encourage mental health while doing that.

I believe that the way that you think about yourself and the energy that you put within yourself is the energy that will reflect within your life. While being in the modeling industry I did get rejected by different tasks that I did not fit the requirements to be apart of. For example models are required to be 5’8 and above to get signed to certain agencies and to walk runway as a professional model. I believe within 2022 it is possible to accomplish these things but the chances are very slim.

I created my brand Kayphoria X for everyone to feel accepted and to have a chance to be a part of the fashion industry no matter what they look like or where they come from. To have a chance to show their confidence within themselves. I knew I wanted to sell lingerie because I wanted to enforce body positivity. I started selling wholesale lingerie my senior year of college. I attended pop-up shops for my university to get my brand monetized and known within the community. As my brand started to become more recognized and favored in the community I was able to take a larger step into the industry by having my brand apart of runway productions.
This was an opportunity not only for myself but for the people who were supporting me. My ambassadors. This gave them an opportunity to be apart of the fashion industry themselves.

As Kayphoria X grew my personal brand was growing along with my process. I was able to be a Designer, Model, and later down the line become an influencer. Having my friends in the industry support me and having access with these abilities to network developed a strong foundation for me to have an opportunity to work along side with The Model Experience. I first got recognized by their team coming in as a model. I was able to meet the founder of TME and the following year I applied to have my brand apart of TME NYFW and Los Angeles Fashion Week. This blessing was so important to me because I never went to school for fashion design and I still want to pursue becoming a veterinarian. As time went on as a fashion designer I started doing more customized designs. During New York fashion week and Los Angeles fashion week I was able to have a Kayphoria X expand to a fashion couture collection all of the couture gowns and pieces were hand made.

During New York fashion week it was an honor and a blessing to be a part of the Vogue community to attend Vogue World and different Vogue events that are held in New York I was able to have a stronger network within the fashion community.

Going through all of my accomplishments and successes if someone were to ask me how I did it. My answer would be walking by faith and not by sight. I put all my faith within my spirituality. The positive genuine energy and work I put into the universe I kept building and manifesting my dreams to become my reality.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I believe what built my reputation within my market was the support I built at my university. I started off attending different pop-up shops and events for my brand to solidify my target audience. With my brand in the market of lingerie I also had another market of mental health appreciation which gravitated to another target audience to add more traffic to my brand.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

At first I was a full-time student for Pre-Vet and Animal Science. In a field that was not the easiest I believe that it was more capable to put my time into my passion full time after I graduated. Before I graduated I put some of my time into building myself in the industry. So graduating I was able to already maneuver my way in the fashion industry. After graduation I was able to turn all of those things into a full-time business/career for myself. My brand is a part of myself. I am not signed to an influencer agency and I have been doing everything in regards to designing, Modeling, and influencing gigs myself. It started to become more easier down the path of influencing after I worked with bigger brands for example VItaly, Dollskill, and Vogue. Doing this not only keeps myself busy but I believe that it influences others that you are capable on doing the things that you find important and want you want to accomplish in your life.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/KAYPHORIA
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kayphoriaofficial/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCwV1QKCmLI9mLF3FLjW7nBQ
• Other: https://linktr.ee/KAYPHORIA

Image Credits
Photographers The Model Experience Giovanni Herrera Arseilus Brown Suplexpro productions// Chris Shinobi Quintin McRae Photography Cxmir__ KAYPHORIA