We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kelly-Ann Williams a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kelly-Ann, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

The WrapQueen mission has always been to promote confidence and beauty. I wanted women to feel that they did not have to rely on their hair to feel beautiful. Headwraps have been around for thousands of years and people have stereotypical views about individuals who wear them. We wanted to break those stereotypes. Wrapqueen reintroduces headwraps with my spin on them. First, we incorporated the use of makeup with headwraps as a brand staple. Then we showed that headwraps can be worn with trendy clothing and accessories like large hoop earrings. Lastly, we incorporated “baby hairs” as part of our brand imagery. Essentially everything I already did was what Wrap Queen became brand-wise. When I wore headwraps it demanded attention and I wanted other women to feel the same way; confident and beautiful.

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?

Wrapqueen started as a side hustle for my husband and me. We both had corporate jobs that we weren’t happy working at. One evening I was upset about something that happened at work. I suggested that we start something on the side until I can find another job. I asked him what he thinks I should do; and he said; “How about you sell something?” I immediately blurted out I should sell head wraps as whenever I wore them I would get such positive feedback from my followers and random strangers on the street. He said he would make the website and take photos. He already had experience from taking my photos and creating my blog Islandchic77.com. After thinking about it for a few seconds I said ok and asked what we should name it. At the time I think we were watching a music channel like BET, or VH1. The song Trap Queen by Fetty Wap started playing and James poked his head out of the kitchen and said Wrap Queen! When I heard it I knew it was the one. We took about 3 months to do our research, build up our social media presence, and put a site together. We didn’t know how to make the headwraps up until the night before the website launched. James had bought an online course on how to sew and we bought a hand-me-down machine from a girl we met at a store. The night the website went live we had our first problem and had to fix it on the fly. We got a sale the first night we opened and we knew we were on to something.

From the start, we aimed to bring back the feeling of belonging which we felt was missing from most brands today. In the 90s clothing was more about your identity versus what is currently trending. Also, the most successful brands have always focused on a culture like skateboarding or hip-hop. Wrap Queen exclusively focuses on beauty culture. For one, we wanted to own urban fashion and beauty which was often overlooked until high fashion gets a hold of it. We unapologetically owned big hoop earrings, Lashes, nails, and edges also known as “Baby Hair”. We also solved the problem of what to do with your hair. For women, a lot of time is spent figuring out what to do with their hair. Wearing a headwrap fixes that problem and guarantees you never have a bad hair day. But most of all we want to use Wrap Queen to promote unity and girl power.

Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?

We sell directly on our site Wrapqueen.com. It’s hard to build your brand under another brand’s platform. There is the issue of control. When you use a platform like say Amazon or Etsy you have to abide by their rules. Your competition is in very close proximity to your brand on websites like Amazon.

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

We started building our social media brand before we built our business. Doing this helped us figure out what our brand was about. Building a social media platform first also helped us know if there was a market for what we wanted to sell. It took a lot of time, consistency, and experimentation to get to where we are today. Our social media strategy was centered on what I loved personally which gave the platform a more organic feel.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wrapqueen.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/wrapqns
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wrapqns/
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/wrapqns/