We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alyse Deanda-Zagada a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Alyse thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
I came up with the idea to create Joli Fashion Society after spending many years in the Texas fashion scene. I’ve seen the ugly and gatekept side of the industry. At the same time I’ve witnessed the loving and supportive side of our community. I felt that each and every Texas city’s fashion scene needed to be supported and lifted up to promote the overall growth of the Texas fashion industry. I believe that with the constant education from the major markets that Texas can blossom into a fashion powerhouse with the amount of talent we have right here. I am focused on providing the platform and support for upcoming models, fashion designers, small businesses such as boutiques, stylists and creatives in the fashion industry. Joli Fashion Society will continuously show support to our Texas Fashion Creatives. I am so excited to build a community where everyone is included, that has space to educate themselves in the current industry standards and help foster the growth of each Texas city’s fashion community.
Alyse, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Joli Fashion Society is the exclusive followship of the Texas fashion elite. JFS exists to bring unity to, provide support to, and foster growth and advancement of the Texas fashion community.
Joli Fashion Society is focused on fostering our Texas Fashion Industry. We have memberships that will build community by offering discounted ticket prices to JFS and local fashion events, we are giving out a scholarship to fashion design students and cultivating quality fashion shows and events throughout the state of Texas. We are set apart from the other Texas fashion groups by creating a safe space where talent and creatives can foster in education and grow within our current communities. Texas is such a large state with a vast amount of talent we truly believe we need to highlight and show the world that Texas can become a fashion hub.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
When building Joli Fashion Society’s Audience on social media I focused on one platform at a time. I started with Instagram where I focused on the organic growth of the page by creating and posting engaging and creative content that pertains to JFS. Over time I slowly started sharing Joli Fashion Society’s page to my personal Instagram account and had my closest friends follow and share it as well. Over time people started to get interested in what we were planning for the Texas fashion industry and started following. When our first event launched we made sure to have a few paid social media ads that would target the direct type of people we want involved in JFS. I created a mix of photos, graphics, carousels and reels to help engage our audience and expand our reach throughout Texas and beyond. I specialize in Social Media Marketing and Managment in my corporate career so growing our social media was a fun challenge for me.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
When funding Joli Fashion Society I focused on saving tons of money knowing I did not want to have a partner or get a loan from the bank to create this business. When I first started, I did everything myself like registering my business with the state, creating my website and promoting JFS. It was very important to me to keep my overall costs very low and focus my time in sharing the mission of Joli Fashion Society. JFS is a for-profit organization in order to be able to make money and give them to local organizations that help the development of the Texas Fashion Industry. Our goal at some point it to be able to give out a yearly scholarship to graduating seniors graduating with fashion degrees. We truly want to foster the growth of our fashion industry young people. It was not easy to self-invest but I am truly glad I did.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jolifashionsociety.com
- Instagram: @jolifashionsociety
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/jolifashionsociety
- Other: Alyse Deanda- Zagada Instagram: @alyse_zagada