Happy Friday, happy people! I came across a young girl by the name of Jamilla Okubo who describes herself as a Kenyan-African, and who's using her Tumblr account to make waves in the fashion industry. 

This a young lady who just recently (as in this year) graduated from Parsons the New School for Design. Need to point out that I'm assuming she graduated based on her time table indicated on her Go Fund Me page. Unaware if she raised the funds she needed to actually graduate. That's neither here or there though, because how she's using social media to get attention is just brilliant. Not only with the Go Fund Me page, but using it to showcase her art and projects on both Tumblr and Instagram. Great mediums for visual content. Doing this has landed her interviews and is putting a spotlight on her work. 

At this young age Jamilla realizes and sees her purpose as empowering people of the diaspora and uses her art, pattern, textile, and fashion design to do so. Looking at her art and textile designs I was blown away at the personalization of her work. Being of East African descent myself, Uganda in my case, I see the African inspiration, however Jamilla has cleverly also added her mother's Southern African-American heritage in her work. The image below I think epitomizes what I just tried to explain. As you can see the fabric depicts cotton, something's that's not prevalent in East Africa, but has strong cultural ties to Southern America, however the pattern of this cloth or fabric is indeed East African.

The fabric which has the specified elements of a border, a centre (in a different pattern), and a text (usually in Swahili, as this cloth originates from the African Great Lakes region in East Africa, where Swahili is the most commonly spoken language) is called a Kanga (or Khanga), or Leso. The word Khanga comes fromthe Swahili word Ku-kanga, which means to wrap. And that's also how its worn, as a wrap, or what you may know as a sarong. The text along the horizontal border, which is a message, tends to be either a riddle or a proverb.

Jamilla expressed in her art though, on viewable on her Tumblr page, how she stylistically could use such a fabric in fashion design. 

So there's two things here I want you to realize. I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it, be uniquely YOU. I'm telling you, that is how you'll get noticed and get ahead. Nobody else has your story, your truth, your life. Not even your twin sister. So don't be ashamed or afraid of what your truth is. It's yours for a reason, embrace it and let it empower you. 

Secondly, everyone needs to get on social media. If you hate it, pick at least one and get familiar, and get comfortable. It's the way of the future and being in denial about it won't serve you. Like I said, everyone is accessible to you know because of it, specially through Twitter. You want attention? Get it through social media and build a community around you. That community will rally behind you and get you traction. I've seen it happen, so there's no reason it can't happen for you. 

Be blessed!