Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Cha’Nice Gunn. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Cha’Nice, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

My first name is Cha’Nice & my custom designs are meant to be unique because they are one of a kind. As my slogan would say, “Only you’ll have it.”

When you put my first name “Cha’Nice” together with “Unique,” you get ChaNique Boutique!

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?

My name is Cha’Nice Gunn but most people know me as Niecey. I am 21 years old , located from Cleveland, Ohio. As a kid going into my teen years, I’ve always been into fashion. My peers always knew me as the “Fashionista” because my appearance showcased how different I was. When I went to school I had my sophisticated looks that the teachers and principals loved. When I would go to birthday parties, my friends would say how “Popping” I looked; In other words, I looked good! And even on my casual days, I’d still receive compliments. “You look so nice and comfortable.”

The more I noticed how much people loved my attire, I started to realize how much love I’ve grown for Fashion & Design. I remember at one point of time, I taught myself how to hand-sew and from that point, I would just take scraps of clothes and make them into my own personal liking. But it wasn’t easy and I never showcased my work! Because I had no experience in designing clothes, I got unmotivated because I felt I didn’t have the right resources to help me perfect my craft. I’ve always dreamt of having my own clothing store but I never knew the steps to get me working towards it.

I attended John Marshall High School of Civic and Business Leadership of 2015. 2017-2018, my Junior year of high school, I began taking a entrepreneurship course focused on helping young people like myself, start up a business. The course covered so many things like; Creating a business name. Inventing a product. Targeting an audience and its mission statement. Making a prototype, and so much more.

From taking that course, I’ve implemented so much knowledge on the business industry, that it finally persuaded me into wanting to get back into fashion designing. By the time I hit my Senior year of high school, I was in the process of going to Kent State University for Fashion Designing. However, I didn’t get accepted into their main campus so I decided to attend the University of Toledo for business entrepreneurship until I figured what my next moves would be. At the time, my mom encouraged me to start up my business, so we discussed what it would be and what I would call it. I had no clue what I wanted to name my business but my mom came up with the PERFECT one. She took my name, “Cha’Nice” and the adjective “Unique” (Because I’m different in my own way) and merged them together, creating “Chanique Boutique.” I instantly approved of it and we registered it into an LLC. 2018, Chanique Boutique was officially established.

Although I wanted to specifically pursue Fashion Designing, I realized because I didn’t go to school for it, I didn’t have the knowledge to move forward with it. So, I decided to go a route more simple for me until I could take fashion designing classes. I decided that, I would just take clothing that’s already made and add my own touches to it. From that, I labeled myself as a custom designer. A custom designer is the same as a fashion designer, except, in my case, I’m not making the clothes from scratch. For example, I’d buy a Jean jacket from Forever 21, and then I’ll add on fabrics and embellishments to make it a more “Custom” look.

When I chose to do customizations, I realized it was way easier for me, as an upcoming designer. My first ever custom design I did was on an old Jean jacket of mines. I added my name to it, with iron-on patches and glitter and posted it to my personal Instagram account. When I received such good feedback, I knew from that point, that was my targeted talent for Chanique Boutique. I told myself, “Start off adding your own style to things then work your way up to designing clothes from scratch.”

Fast forward, in 2021 I was off work for almost a whole year due to a work injury. I was hurt. I was upset. I felt broke and questioned how would I survive. But then, one day, I was just sitting at home and said, “I need to figure something out. How can I make some quick money?” That’s when I started having my best friend Mickiyah model more custom pieces for me. I created a business page, a temporary logo, and posted all the content on my business Instagram page and it brought me so much more potential customers.

My mom, then got me a office to start working in for my craft. I was able to buy most of the materials I needed but couldn’t quite get the main things like, a sewing machine, because it was too expensive. So, I had to work with what I could afford. I stuck with hand-sewing and gluing methods. It did me justice though because people started to reach out for custom orders. But because I still knew I didn’t have everything I needed to perfect my craft, I decided to put CB on hold.

Now we’re in 2023 and your girl is back and better. I have been gaining more knowledge and skills in custom designing and now I am slowly in the process of relaunching Chanique Boutique as a refresher to my target audience. Chanique Boutique will officially be relaunching June 24th, 2023. I look forward to every customer that is potentially interested in ordering a product from me. I will be offering custom jackets, jeans, and shoes in different styles. So just remember, if and when you ever purchase a product from me, “Only you’ll have it!”

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I started building my audience on social media from my personal Instagram page. I would post little snippets of things I’d be working on and people would react to them, in a good way. When I realized people wanted to start inquiring for custom orders, I decided I needed to make a business page that’d be more professional and effective. Once I made my business page, I posted my temporary logo announcing CB would be coming soon. But then I realized some people didn’t know what my business was, so I started posting content of my work. I’d share it again on my personal page and tell people to go follow Chanique Boutique’s business page and it worked. But as stated before, I put Chanique Boutique on hold so I tended to lose my audience for a while. I started off with about 200 followers on my business page. But, as of today, since Chanique boutique has announced it’ll be relaunching soon, I have been updating more promo content on my business page and it has been catching a lot of peoples attention since. My friends repost my work for me and refer me. And after paying for business promo through other marketing businesses and tools like Instagram, I am now at almost 500 followers. My goal is to reach 1,000 followers or more by the relaunch date.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Social media, Specifically Instagram and Tik Tok.

Social media plays such a big part in gaining an audience for your business in todays time. It’s one of the most easiest and cheapest ways you can market yourself to gain more customers/clients. It has definitely been my best source because almost everyone uses social media now.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.chaniqueboutique.com/
• Instagram: Chanique.boutique
• Facebook: Chanique Boutique