We were lucky to catch up with Vanessa James recently and have shared our conversation below.

Vanessa, appreciate you joining us today. How do you feel about asking friends and family to support your business? What’s appropriate, what’s not? Where do you draw the line?

Starting a business you always hear people say, your friends and family won’t support you. Strangers that you don’t know will support you first. Unfortunately, for a lot of folks this is very true. However, for me, it has been the direct opposite. My family, friends, and sorority sisters have been my biggest supporters. My first order, my largest order, my first whole sale order, all came from people in my circle. I think I also have the advantage of the people around me fitting into my target market so that makes it a lot easier.

Also, support doesn’t always look like being a customer. It can be helping with a new design, sharing your post, or sitting with you at a market. There are so many ways folks can show support towards you and your business outside of buying a product and they have definitely showed up for me in more ways than one.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

​My passion for creating unique designs began over a decade ago while being a member of the cheerleading team at Benson Polytechnic High School (Portland, OR). Whenever the team needed apparel designed, I was the girl for the job. After graduation I continued my education in Graphic Design at Jackson State University (Jackson, MS). Returning home, I studied Web Design at Portland Community College (Portland, OR). With a strong educational background coupled with lots of prayer and faith, I was ready to step forward and make her lifelong dream a reality. Innocent Designs was established in 2020 with several collections that speak to my personal life.

Innocent Designs is a minority and female-owned company, established in Portland, Oregon. Creating and making fashionable apparel and designs that speak to the individual, using inspirational and cultural quotes and sayings that can be advertised to create or send a message.

The mission of Innocent Designs is to step outside the box, spark conversation and provide laughter, all with a unique touch that only we can bring. When you purchase a product from Innocent Designs you support a minority and female-owned company. “With a purpose” is our company slogan and we strive to give back to our community, by sharing resources and donating some of our proceeds to organizations in the community.

One of our many goals is to create conversations that folks my shy away from. We want to make you comfortable with the unfordable. Or statements invite these conversations and allow folks to have dialogue with one another and get better understand for who people are without judgement.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

From the beginning we wanted our products to be as local as possible. We starting out with using a US based company out of Florida and we quickly realized that wasn’t local enough. We need to be able to go in and speak with our vendors and let them know about the brand and what we were looking for. Currently 3 out of 5 of our vendors are based in Portland, OR. These are small locally owned company’s that we have built relationships with. When things go wrong we can speak to someone face to face about issues. This also helps us cut down on cost, as we don’t have to pay for shipping and can go pick up items when ready.

Our other vendors are US based and we just haven’t found someone closer to create those items for us. I know it’s normal in the industry to even look outside of the country to source items due to the lower cost. However, quality and community were very important to us and being able to support other small business in the community has been really great.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The biggest lessons I’ve had to unlearn is that no is okay. I took rejection so personal in the beginning, even shed a few tears. Someone walking by your booth giving you the stair down. a marking denying your participation or telling you you’re not a “good fit” for their event. These things were very hard t process, especially since I felt I head a product that spoke to everyone. It made me question not only my business but myself, wonder if I was good enough or if I would fit in.

I had to realize that I didn’t start a business to fit in with the norm. We wanted to the step outside the box on everything that we did. I know that what we create is uncomfortable for a lot of people and we might not be allowed into certain spaces and that’s okay.

Now I would be lying if I said the no’s don’t still hurt a little bit, however, they don’t slow me down. They definitely roll off a lot faster and I am to keep pushing forward.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.innocentdesigns.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/innocentdesigns_wap/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/innocentdesigns
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/InnocentDesigns_WAP/

Image Credits
My Voice matters: Model – Dominique stewart Photographer: Andrea Morris with Apis Photography Because he lived me first: Model: Elijah Malloy Photographer: Andrea Morris with Apis Photography God lives me the sinner & It’s only ghetto when we do it: Model: Vanessa James (myself) Photographer: Andrea Morris with Apis Photography Vanilla is black: Photographer: Kyra Berry Stickers: Photographer: Vanessa James (myself)