We recently connected with Raquel Rhodes and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Raquel, thanks for joining us today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

I do wish I had started my brand a lot earlier. I feel like my journey, if at all possible, may have been greater.

I’ve just spent a lot of time doing what I was raised to do; which is, go to school , work and save money but that wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I ventured out to focus on my gifts.

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

Well my name is Raquel Monique Rhodes, and I started my brand of customized eyewear back in about 2003.

I started it because I was working in retail, (specifically I was working at Dillard’s in the shoe department) and I was one of the top 5 sales people in that department. So on my breaks I would take time and go to the accessories department and just study how things were made, and I noticed just how people would react to Different types of merchandise and I would often witness a lot of fighting and arguing and the different attitudes of people, how they moved, responded to certain types of merchandise.

I noticed it seemed that people thought they were better than the other; one having a different colour of the same item, and seeing the escalation. It was very perplexing to me. So, after prayer, I set out to start creating and designing my own accessories.

My goal was to create accessories that would show the power, the freedom and strength of being your individual self, the way God designed us all to be.

Then, somewhere along the lines, hit a bit of freeze and lost my “Creative mojo” , took some needed meditation and prayer time….henceforth my eywear brand was bjorn.

What sets me apart from other brands is people have the option to customize their own brand of “I-Wear”(‘I’ is For individual, inspire, incomparable and Ineffable)

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

1st society would have to learn to embrace the freedom of art and when you are purchasing art from a creative, STOP trying to cheapen us by asking for discounts and “hookups!!!”

You don’t know the story behind what we do , the blood sweat , tears, sleepless nights, constant moving around, the hustling that goes behind all of that !!!

Do you walk into a Louis Vuitton store or Gucci store or Target and ask for a discount or a hook up ?!? Show the same respect and honor to us as the individual creatives that we are. Because what we do is we pour back into the community we invest in you and we take time to design and create something that is suitable for your individual taste.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My mission is to change the world’s view and change the way people see and what’s driving me is this lack of self love because people are seeing each other through the eyes of the world and not through the eyes of the one that designed and created us. Also to help people and help others upcoming creatives to have a platform to share and sell and promote and upgrade their businesses and brands I want to quit being able to create jobs for people I want to help a lot of these small countries that go unnoticed, build farmland So people won’t go hungry.

What drives me is seeing how my dad grew up as 1 of 17 children and being the one that went to college and became an engineer seeing how hard my grandmother worked just being driven by my ancestors and breaking all generational distractions and generational curses but God above everything that’s what drives me.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.I-WearbyRaqui.com
• Instagram: I-Wear by Raqui
• Facebook: I-Wear By Raqui
• Twitter: I-Wear By Raqui

Image Credits
Dragqueen Eureka O’Hara Actress Tisha Campbell Happy clients Janelle Monae Lil Mo’ rapper/r&b Kelis