By Brooklyn Brown
Photos by Anastazia Mcintosh
GROWING YOUR FABULOUS FASHION BUSINESS
Do you want to own your own business? You will discover a lot of amazing business around you, especially on this amazing island of Hawaii that will inspire you into wanting to be a CEO yourself. There are a lot of opportunities for people to network with and to get your skills to be useful either u want to be a fashion designer or even owning your own restaurant. Leeward Community College has a lot of opportunities for students to get a head start of what it's like to be a CEO, there are many business classes such as entrepreneurship to help students dream business that you can achieve.
I got to chat with an amazing business owner who is Khyra Dillard who is a fashion designer of Peace Peeps. Khyra wants to spread peace through her fashion. Kyrah peace peeps designs have these amazing characters with their eyes closed that represent peace not just for her but for people for people all over the world and different backgrounds. Male or female, She wants peace for everyone she uses these amazing positive colors that stand out with her designs that she has designed that makes her very unique as a fashion designer.
WHAT IS YOUR COMPANY CALLED?
My company is called peace peeps.
HOW DID YOU GET YOUR IDEA?
The whole purpose behind my brand it's to remind people to have peace, so actually I didn't have a lot of peace back then. Back in 2015 I was dealing with a lot of depression and I had a lot of anxiety and fear. So I started basically creating what I wanted, so I closed all the eyes on my characters just because to me that symbolizes that they have peace. They’re not meditating or anything they’re just thinking about peaceful things.
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO START YOUR BUSINESS?
My business, honestly my mom, I was giving away my art for free,and I moved back with my parents, after my first year of college living on my own and she was telling me that I should put it on a T-shirt and i can start selling it,and so kind from there we ordered some samples, and ever since then that was 2016.
HOW DO YOU MARKET YOUR BUSINESS?
I market through instagram, through the events. I do a lot of events throughout the island, so I do pop up shops and I do murals as well around the island, and I guess networking events too. That's kinda how I market and I guess wearing the brand itself, just wearing it fashionably.
WHAT DIFFICULTIES HAVE YOU FACES SINCE STARTING YOUR BUSINESS?
Money, Money, but more so in sense of budgeting my money because I make money. But then if I am using it incorrectly, I’ve gotten alot better with it now but at first 2 years, year in a half of my business. It really boiled down to me using the money that I made with peace peeps and putting it back into peace peeps I didn't do that. I spent a lot of it, it's not a good business practice, so I try not to do that anymore.
WHAT IS UNIQUE ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS?
I guess the fact that my entire business reminds people to have peace. I've never seen a company where that's their focus is just reminding people to have peace and making it to where it's not one sided, like it not just for black people or just for people in hawaii, its for everybody, so I guess that makes me or my company unique.
DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS?
I do, I do, okay for young entrepreneurs I would say highly recommend, just start, even if you don't have all of your paperwork or all a need to wait for all of the money for this, just start, order some samples even if not do mockups and stuff like that, there's a lot of websites, if you’re a clothing designer,it's called PRINTFUL.COM. you can do mockup designs, i would just say start,a lot of people don't start,it's good to have goals and of course it's good to plan but if fear or if all that's getting in the way, just put it out there.
INSTAGRAM: @peacepeepsdesigns
WEBSITE: peacepeepedesighns.com/shop
This article originally appeared in the Fall 2019 issue.
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