Vogue CLUB Meet the founder: Brandice Daniel
Photo: Brandice Daniel, Vogue Club members / Courtesy of Vogue Club
While much of the art and creative world set their sights on Miami and all things Basel last week, One World Trade Center, home of Vogue Magazine , transformed into an intimate space bridging conversations charting the unknown in fashion, entrepreneurship and life.
Photo: Naomi Elizee, Brandice Daniel / Courtesy of Vogue Club
Vogue Club , the magazine’s global membership of fashion lovers and industry insiders convened in-person for their Meet The Founder series featuring Brandice Daniel , CEO and founder of the fashion creative agency
Harlem’s Fashion Row .
Vogue editor Naomi Elizée led the Vogue Club audience on a vivid trek through Daniel’s work building HFR’s Annual Fashion Show, Style Awards, countless projects and collaborations set on one mission - filling the gap between brands and designers of color in fashion.
“Sometimes you find your purpose, other times your purpose will find you, and a lot of times you’ll know that because you’ll be so irritated that you have to do something,” said Daniel.
That “something” sparked her creative vision since HFR’s inception in 2007 to spearheading global partnerships with LVMH and Nike. She calls the move from working retail in her hometown of Memphis, TN, to New York a cliff-jumper decision. Her brand, Harlem’s Fashion Row continues to draw inspiration from the fashion, style and culture unique to the place she still calls home - Harlem, NY.
Entrepreneurship comes with its own share of setbacks and Daniel candidly reflects on a point where she almost quit.
She beams with pride as she talks about her latest project HFR Fashion In Color Vol.1 , a published who’s who of designers of color changing the face of fashion.
“There hasn’t been a book written like this since 1982,” she adds, referencing the late fashion designer and Black Fashion Museum founder, Lois K. Alexander's book "Blacks in the History of Fashion.”
HFR Fashion in Color Vol.1 features original artwork by Brooklyn-based painter Ashley Buttercup and showcases fashion designers and style icons such as Dapper Dan, Laquan Smith, April Walker, Fe Noel, Kerby Jean-Raymond and Misa Hylton.
Daniel actively seeks counsel from designers like those featured in her book to keep her work going and inspire the next generation of Black and Latinx talented designers. Her nonprofit ICON360 has granted over $2M to black designers and HBCU fashion departments in efforts to provide financial resources and professional development to emerging talent.
Elizée chimes in with Vogue Club guests on the pressing question everyone’s curious to know - what’s in store for HFR in 2024? Daniel smirks as if keeping the world’s best secret before telling everyone to stay tuned for a major announcement next fall. If HFR’s current momentum is any indicator of future success, the fashion world is in for an epic surprise.