We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kennedy Briele. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kennedy below.
Alright, Kennedy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
I have always believed that as creatives, we experience success at each point in our journey as opposed to experiencing success exclusively at the end. Often times, we get so caught up in desiring instant gratification that it causes us to focus less on the beauty and importance of how far we have come. When you have a desire to achieve long lasting goals, it takes time and dedication to get to the heights that you envision yourself at. There are so many important things that we must experience and learn on our independent journeys while we are working towards our dreams in order to prepare us for the future. When you create a goal in your mind, you embark on a journey full of newness and step into the unknown. The potential is endless and more times than not, you will find yourself achieving things that you never would have been able to experience if you had not taken the first step. That is true success.
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 Kennedy Briele. I am a 22 year old creative and designer. I began my creative journey in 2020 when I launched my first brand Amil Amir. I was inspired to start my brand because of my love for art and the desire that I had to turn my art into fashion garments. In the beginning I started with teaching myself how to sew, learned how to draft my own patterns, and everything sort of fell into place afterwards. For two years now, I have tested the market with simple designs and continued to educate myself on the fashion industry and how I can best make an impact on the industry. I am currently in the midst of transitioning my brand in its entirety to focus on collections and fashion reimagined. My main goal after transitioning this year is to highlight beauty, diversity, substance, and newness in the fashion industry. I am also aiming to create less while offering better quality garments that are able to tell a story in the most sound way. The fashion industry has become so loud in a sense and often times the noise takes away from the artists and the messages they try to convey through their art. With all of those things being said, I can say that I am most proud of how far I have come in my journey. I am proud that I have been open to failing forward while continuing to grow and evolve. I would love for everyone to know that as I grow as a person, my work grows also. I am continuously reaching new heights in order to offer the best quality garments and to tell memorable stories through my art. I cannot wait to share everything that I have reimagined this year.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
The best source of new clients for me has been from gaining social media exposure. Building a business page on Instagram helped me to reach my target audience at the time and it drove my sales up tremendously. There was a time where 90% of my store traffic and orders were from Instagram. While I do love the exposure that I have gotten from social media thus far, I know that I haven’t used social media to my complete advantage. This time around, I plan to invest more in professional marketing and ads across all social media platforms instead of exclusively on Instagram. My vision for my brand has grown and changed tremendously and I know that I will be marketing to a different target audience soon so I will be using social media a lot more in order to reach that audience.
Have you ever had to pivot?
For the past 4 years, there have been many times where I have had to pivot in business, life, and my career. There is one time in particular that made it necessary for me to pivot in in order to be where I am today. When I graduated high school, I was admitted to my dream college to study biology and become an an anesthesiologist. This has been my dream for as long as I could remember. I was only able to attend that specific college for one semester due to personal reasons. After having to leave school, I was devastated and had no sense of what direction I would go in. Although that was one of the most challenging times that I have ever gone through, it helped me to shift my focus to pursuing my true passions and desires. Since leaving school, I have learned so many priceless lessons, I have accomplished things that I never thought imaginable, and I have continued to live in my full purpose everyday without regrets. Looking back, there was so much beauty in learning how to let go, learning to pivot, and learning how to be open to whatever happened next.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.amilamir.com
- Instagram: kennedybriele