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Speaking of Curves:Jasmine Elder
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Oct 31, 2024
Have you been tuning in to our FB Live Series, Speaking of Curves! Each week, we interview various plus size businesses and designers to support, especially now. And today’s guest? Is no stranger to TCF! BUT we are soooo geeked to chat it up with Jasmine Elder, the designer behind Jibri! In our latest interview on Speaking of Curves, we are hyped to have Jasmine share how her dress was painted on the cover of Vanity Fair, by Amy Sherald, in honor of Breonna Taylor. To read more head over to https://thecurvyfashionista.com/contemporary-designer-jibri/
View Video Transcript
0:00
all right hello hello hello hey girl hey i'm murray dunam the creator of the kirby fashionista welcome back
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to speaking of curves the world the everything has aligned perfectly because i'm here
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on a tuesday past couple of tuesdays didn't really work out but now we're here on a tuesday
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and we have an uber special guest i've been trying to get her on my facebook sit my our facebook live series for a minute um
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as you guys are joining in make sure you say hey girl hey let us know where you're tuning in from
0:31
as you are joining in make sure you ask questions because we can see them and we want to make sure we answer your
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questions now today's special guest i've known her i want to say about
0:42
10 or 11 years right so for the past 10 and 11 years we go back and forth
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talking industry um business uh we help each other kind of like kick
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ourselves out of our little like moments we're kind of confused but uh she's extremely dear to me so help me
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welcome miss jasmine elder the designer behind jabri hello hello hello marie and gift how are
1:10
you i'm good i'm so great to have you on here like you know for me i'm always like come on
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you gotta talk we gotta we gotta have some fun but as we get started like you have some
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really dope news to share um of a project that you have participated in that just
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dropped today can you talk to us like a little bit about this project and and what what i'm
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alluding to okay well what she's alluding to is um
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i uh one of a dress from jabrie was used in a painting of brianna taylor on the
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cover of september's issue of vanity fair and it's the digital drop yesterday today is the physical drop
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okay so i don't know like today like we um i shared it on twitter um the cover
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of vanity fair is an image that's dedicated to brianna taylor um it was created by an artist she
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painted it it was painted yes by amy sheryl right by amy sheryl as a painting
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and they had commissioned jabrie jasmine to create the dress that she could then um illustrate
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for brianna yep that is like you know such an amazing honor
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to be you know recognizing to to be pulled into this like for you you had a a special connection with this
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like tell us a little bit about this process because making a dress for someone like like brianna for everything that's going on
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like how important was this for you um it was mostly unbelievable that they
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were even reaching out to me um honestly and um because they didn't have
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to but um again amy sheryl i can't give her enough praise she was really she was dedicated to working with
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um an all black team basically and she wanted to make sure that the designer
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was black and the designer was actually plus-sized something that that brianna could actually wear
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and um for you were you nervous like were you excited like oh absolutely like so did you did you like
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how did you decide like what piece to make for her like how did you know it was really honestly it was very
3:24
quick i only had one day to make a decision are you getting weird feedback from me no oh okay good um so i was literally
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i was leaving my shop one night and um i got an email when the title said vanity fair cover at the subject of
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vanity fair for cover and i get emails asking for stuff all the time but none that say vanity fair cover yo
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right so i opened the email and it was saying hey where where it didn't say what it was for she
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said i'm working on a cover i'm a painter and i'm painting something and i want to use one of your dresses call me if you're
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interested so of course i called her and uh right of course i called her and
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um she was very matter-of-fact about what it was she didn't she just said okay everything's very confidential it's
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for the september issue of vanity fair i'm a painter and i honestly she was so um
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confident i don't think i've ever spoken to anyone who was just so like very matter-of-fact about which
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exactly whoever just said to angela that is exactly who she is but i didn't know that at the time um
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and it made me google her right away like while we were talking i said let me who is this lady so when i
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the name sounded familiar but i wasn't 100 sure who she was when i googled it and of course
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the first thing that popped up was the pain that michelle obama is in the smithsonian i said oh my goodness oh wow like i mean it was
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already like like freak out because i probably would have gotten chills i would have been like
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it was it was amazing like even though vanity fair was impressive like i was even more impressed to be working with
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her and so um i just listened i honestly i'm a talker
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but in this case i just listened you know i let her tell me exactly what it was what did she need
5:08
and then she told me well i asked her who it was for like who was the subject and she said brianna
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taylor and i literally stopped again and like i honestly had to think for a second
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because she must she's not talking about brianna taylor who has been murdered and
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she was and she said yes i'm gonna paint her you know i want to get your dress we're gonna put it on a double and then i'm gonna paint
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it to be her and i said oh my god like so it just took on a whole different weight for me at that point
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so she i'm sorry so she um she told me you know basically she had a
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short turnaround time so she needed to get the garments relatively quickly she told me about what kind of print she liked
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what type of fabric and she already liked the dresses so she she told me she loved the detail and this was a time where um
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my prints weren't the star you know so i'm thinking oh her paintings are always so colorful she's gonna want something with all this
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print in it but she said no i have a very short turnaround time so you know i really want something where
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the dress has a lot of movement and like i want to see some life in the pleading and all that kind of thing things that i
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think about when i design but i never really hear anybody ever talk about the elements of my of my
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garments in that manner before but for her that's what she was looking for so i sent her a box of garments the very
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next day about maybe five or ten pieces to choose from and she chose she selected that one um
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she sent me a picture of it on the body like another thing about her and i i'm really like i said i am more of a
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fan of amy at this point then um it's just been a completely different experience for me i've done
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magazines before i've never done a cover before of course but like working with her it gave me a sense
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of dignity that i had never experienced with working with any fashion magazine ever before but she
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really kept me included which she didn't have to usually if somebody says oh can i borrow a dress or and i'll send them the dress and i never
7:08
hear anything else again and then one day i'm in the grocery store and it's in this magazine this wasn't like that at
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all it was she was very transparent about everything she talked to me about who
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the model was going to be she showed me what the girl looked like and she asked me was it okay like we needed to put a
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little more skin in there a little slit for um brianna because my split was a little short a little higher
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i mean um lower than it would have been on a 26 year old and um she told me what her mother said
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about you know some of the pieces i sent were just not things that brianna would have worn in her real life like she sent me some
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images of her like off of her cell phone and you know she hold on with her mom well
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through amy but yes they were texts from her mom so they were like you know her little fashion overdress
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which was really heartwarming because it really made you realize like this was a very young girl you know her
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she hadn't had a chance to develop her fashion sense yet or not that fashion sense matters but i'm
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just saying she wasn't she was just a young um she was coming into her own as
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a woman and um you know of course that was all taken from her and um so yeah she kept me abreast on
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all of that she sent me when she started painting i got to see what that looked like i got to really see the process and when she finished it
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i got to see that and um so i knew what the cover was going to be before it actually came out i just didn't know
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exactly when and you know with so many rules about confidentiality and stuff like that again things i'd never experienced
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before so it was a the experience the actual technical experience was extremely um
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hey miss nikki thank you um the technical experience was something i had
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not experienced before i had never been that involved in the process and seeing what really goes behind doing
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something like this and i really appreciate that i'm like we are just like
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so excited for you in being part of this like monumental memorial
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to her like this is like historical for you this is like a a you know you i
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hopefully you'll get like a physical copy if you guys are absolutely yeah if
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you're just joining us we're here with gibri uh i'm with jasmine of debris and she's actually talking with us about
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her process and participating in the vanity fair cover painted by amy
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shared they this year cheryl cheryl amy cheryl who painted michelle
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obama's dress um in this room and they used a dress from jabrie to honor
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um to honor brianna taylor and i'm just so excited and grateful to you
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for like you know that you were part of this process because some people you know everyone's still
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discovering all the different designers all the different resources in plus size fashion
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and for those who aren't aware of you and debris like you are
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the consummate contemporary plus size designer like you've been around what 15 no
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not quite i've been around um i've celebrated my i'll be going up on 12 years of business but not
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it's been about 15 years of you know me doing it and not selling a single button but i've been obviously designing
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my whole life so yeah i've been a part of this industry for it's been many years
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right and and when it comes to contemporary i want to pivot a little bit because
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when it comes to contemporary contemporary is a space that you know i want to say
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you know prior to you there were hardly if any contemporary designers like we have
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designers we have high-end designers we have all you know like the you know the asos forever 21 the you
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know the fast fashion but when it comes to contemporary
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how would you best describe it for the plus size person because there are still people who are just
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getting introduced to this space of contemporary plus-sized fashion and for them they don't understand like
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the average uh cocktail dress in straight sizes cost 300
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that's the average cocktail dress so for you like you come with a very pointed eye a
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very um elevated level with fabric construction talk to us a little bit about
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what contemporary means um that's a good question actually one that
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i have don't think about on a regular basis i would say for me um where i think i fit into that
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space is i try to offer a effortless an effortlessly glamorous
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option for everyday glam plus-sized women where it's not a special occasion it's
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not a birthday party or something not that you can't wear them to those things but i wanted it to be for women who
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have this sense of glamour in their everyday life and something is effortless so it's not necessarily sense to the gods it's
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read people necessary about my um garments and it's it's eye-opening that it's even
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seen like that i've read people say things about like how i'm not afraid to take up space or the patterns or um
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they'll it wouldn't be offensive words but like i never thought of that i never ever in a million years was that wasn't
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my intention but when i look at it now i look at it and it's got a new definition in my head every time i see some of the pieces now
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for sure and when it comes to you know you're also introducing folks to a
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different price point you know that you know you were kind of pioneering like
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you know giving us our own plus-sized version of a marc jacobs diamond firstenberg
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um cynthia stuffy all these contemporary designers that are straight sized
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but you are giving it to us and plus and so forth for this journey has been a little
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bit of an educational process correct oh absolutely i mean for both the consumer
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and yourself right absolutely because um i didn't really know who my customer
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really was when i started i was my customer and um i knew that i had to have something to
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wear to work that i felt comfortable in and it was you know daily people would comment on my
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all my clothes every single day and i'm like maybe it's not just me i mean i was a little bit of a weirdo early in my
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life probably still a little a little strange now but i guess around that time they were starting to change
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from costumes which i was a costume designer it started to change from costume to more wearable fashions
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and so just you know i didn't i didn't have it all together i didn't really know how to construct in perfectly fabrics weren't the right
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ones yet you know i did a lot of set when i started out lots of statins and um so i started to
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change it to more daily use and i realized that it like it really fit my personality and then i
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discovered this entire um community of women who were absolutely looking for the exact same
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thing and so as you know so you know for you guys who are just joining us we are
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talking with jasmine the designer behind jabri and we're talking about her vanity fair
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cover we're talking about her you know kind of four way four way into
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contemporary plus size fashion and so jasmine i'm curious like what do you think that's an element that
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has not changed like from your from when you started to today because we've all
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evolved but there's always a core piece that stays the same what is that for you i still think that
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it's a part of the glam and a part of the the effortlessness i tried to always make it something that's
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accessible um i didn't want it to i wanted plus women to be pulled into the fantasy of fashion
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but into their everyday world and i think though things have evolved i think i always had
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that there that was something that i was just a part of who i am and i think yes okay i think one of the
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things that also is very um that's very about you is the fabric yo fabric is always top notch
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i love fabric fabric yeah that's the thing about your process
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because some people don't know that you can paint some of these foundations well basically
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i've been creating garments ever since i was a teenager and of course you know you start in those type of situations you start
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with what you have um and i didn't always have access to some of the fabrics i have
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access to now so i did a lot of hand fabrication and it's kind of it's transferred into my career even to this point sometimes i
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kind of oh i don't know if i should have put that online because then i'm painting you know it might take i'll be i can
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paint for two or three weeks or hand bead or hand feather or something like that but i do love creating textiles um one day i hope
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to be able to have my own textiles manufactured oh girl from your lips to god ears because that would be amazing yeah
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i would love that i i still have this dress and to this very day i got it in 2009 so
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just to kind of give you guys like a perspective in terms of quality longevity
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timelessness i have this white dress from you it's a crippled cotton dress and it's
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peplum and got it in 2009 y'all and to this very day it is still like
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brand new and i'm able to put it in the washer and dryer
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i mean it's probably supposed to but i do right right i always took a minute it still
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works though it's still like brand new plus i probably am like watching it really nicely right which is
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i always tell people to dry clean but if you know how to take care of your clothes you can absolutely
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wash it you can and that particular dress i that was hand um that was hand pleated that fabric i
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that was and i saw i'm glad to hear that 10 11 years later is still in in prime
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condition because i took regular uh i camera it was a cotton
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it was a jersey yeah it was a very it was a light jersey and it was i
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folded it and knotted it and did all this stuff to it to create the texture that that so that was a hand fabricated
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um piece that you have and she's still cute and you know and because of the way that it's stretched like i'm still
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able to fit it oh yes that's great so yeah that's good i like to hear that
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but like you know it's important because you know when we talk about like especially now with verona and
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in this place of the pandemic a lot of people are being more intentional about their clothing choices right right
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they're stepping some people are moving away from the fast fashion they're paying more attention to ethical
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to sustainable to pieces that are going to last a lot longer in their life they're kind
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of paring down being more intentional and what they buy and your brand kind of fits in the
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spaces of you know one ethical ethically made two like you you're really paying attention
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to pieces that you create garments that last forever
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i mean is it i mean am i lying i hope not well i mean like there's
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comments here this one um so pepper said my pink polka dot dress is um hey peppa great i love
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i love to hear it that's what i do it for that reason i don't want it to be something that you have to get rid of in
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a year right i wanted to be there for for a long time and i hate that i hate like it's all
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limited and you know like i hate when i buy something and i love it and then you know it disappears like it falls
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apart and then i can't find it again and so for me i have learned like i'll spend a little bit more
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on the pieces that i love so that they have more longevity now absolutely when it comes to i
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mentioned covered and i mentioned the rona like as an indie designer how has this
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impacted for some it's boosted for some if they've had to hard pivot how has it
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how has it affected you i think i would fall into both of those categories i um
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i definitely i did a quick pivot i so i transformed my spring collection immediately to a loungewear so
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i started doing loungewear back in march and also um and we loved it i shared it yeah
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thank you and um yes it has been a great increase in in just visibility i don't think it
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was necessarily the rona it was also just people being home more sharing more
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of course the um influx of people wanting to do business with with black owned
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companies that was absolutely a a spike for me because i'm in a niche
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market so if you're looking for this specific category you know i was pretty much in a lot of those lists and i thank everyone
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for sharing that and and mentioning me and lots of those instagram posts because that really as a matter of fact that's how
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um the artist found me for the vanity fair it was from one of those lists
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so for the i have to pause there for a second so even if you can't you know even if you
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have to save up to kind of invest in a piece like if you're not used to just by sharing and promoting other
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small businesses like this you know those actions actually helped
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literally help jasmine get this opportunity with vanity fair and amy carol
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but it's important that you know we support our indies we support um a share a like a comment is is
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free all right i didn't even realize oh my goodness
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like it was overwhelming it was um i didn't even realize that i had so many
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people that were um they were even aware of me that were not actual my my because a lot of my clients
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i know their names because i see them all the time you know it's a lot of regulars but this the shares were
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um were it was tremendous i can't even think of another
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word it was all day for days and days and days and days and days and um i was just very overwhelmed and
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very thankful for that so i appreciate that awesome kimberly said i absolutely love your line of
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clothes you are great i don't have one yet but i will make this investment soon hi kimberly sounds good to me
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yeah hey you know and it's and it's definitely you know for me anytime that i get something like i always try to
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make sure that i can wear like five different ways you give us the different um ways that
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you know you'll you'll actually share some of your images on instagram from like you know and show different ways that
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folks have worn it and you also share the customers who wear it absolutely and that kind of like for me
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i appreciate that because it helps show the versatility of of your looks
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right because you can easily go from like rich auntie to like power ceo
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absolutely and those are the the brunt of my clients are are definitely um power women that are
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not necessarily walking around in 10 inch heels and i know full beats of makeup and stuff so i i love when they
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send pictures and i get to see in their natural lives and then for you like when you you said you were
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kind of like pivoting and you also got a boost like what else so what else did you do aside
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from shifting to loungewear did you jump in on the masks as well i did mask and it was under duress
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because our people kept asking about the math the master mastermind and i um i mean i have i wish that it
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wasn't so messy in here i could show you my warehouse it is i have a trillion yards with fabric so
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if if everyone trillion uh literally a catrillion so what i was not in shortage of was
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fabric to make masks and um they were you know very affordable i did them at ten dollars and
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again this was a space where i was it was unbelievable the support
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that i got there which was people who may not actually have any debris garments people who
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may not even fit my clothes men um people from all different backgrounds
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were just ordering these masks like crazy and you know they're washable and they're at that time we were in a
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shortage and then i did a lot of um donations as
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well so i did lots of donations to hospitals i did schools which i don't know why they need the room now that i just said that out
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loud but i did and i sent some to prisons i did the postal workers
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so it was like it was a it felt meaningful as well that's
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awesome and so like now you have this cover you've dropped loungewear you
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have a um masks
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i was just about to i was just you also introduced accessories with jewelry and it like sells out the
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second it drops like for those who don't know about your jewelry like talk to us about what jewelry you offer
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um so i'm not designing i have designed some jewelry pieces um and they i am a garment structure so i
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learned very quickly that like jewelry construction has to be done a little bit differently so what i ended
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up doing was just curating a collection of like some of my favorite pieces and again this is an offer for people
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that are not necessarily ready to purchase some of my garments you can still get a piece of debris through
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the curated jewelry that i use in all of my photo shoots um it's a part of my regular life it's a part of the lives of most of my
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normal clients you know their everyday rings things you're going to wear at the time or earrings you know we i'm a hoop girl
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i've been wearing hoods since i was probably like 13 years old every single day so to get some
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different um silhouettes of hoops with different textures and stuff it was just it's just fun and again i know we're all sitting
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in the house and i'm not as social as we used to be and it feels good to have
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a little a little something sparkly on you know at home and for those who don't know i just
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posted the url but can you tell them like where they can um shop your collection
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and follow you on social oh sure my website is jabrie online and
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that's j-i-b-sm boy r-i online one word dot com um and jabri online is my tag on all
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social platforms on instagram facebook and twitter i don't talk much on twitter so
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but it is i think station twitter's popping says i know i always i get the notifications
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whenever i come up in a conversation and i was trying to figure out how to look at the comments the other day and i said
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okay i'm gonna have to google that how to do it the conversations are great conversation again i just picked up a new a new tv show and
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i know it came from twitter because i saw i think you were in the conversation someone must have asked
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something about um a higher end plus garment or something and it was a long
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list of rothwell she just asked them yeah
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yeah well thank you um and so that that ended up flipping around and then a
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person from a show contacted me like the day and she mentioned the twitter the twitter twitter feed oh wow yeah again yeah just talking
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it helps well so like you know for our indie designers and especially now
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during the ronaldo like could you give some tips to the everyday shopper like how we can
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support these envies and yourself especially to ensure that y'all make it through this um
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i think like you said something earlier you said people were starting to move away from fast fashion and i think that's more of like a that's
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a internal decision that people are making not necessarily to keep um indies going but just realizing that
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like we need to create some of our own things here um to keep jobs going here and stuff
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like that so with indies a lot of people are not um they're not used to the influx of sales
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because i can say even myself who i have a very regular flow of clients those masks almost took me out they
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almost took me out um because it was just so much and um i honestly it's funny didn't even
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really make much because i started to do ups instead of and i did
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it all for free the shipping was all free because ups could come and pick this stuff up i didn't have to worry about going but there's lots of people that don't have
28:21
that option um and they're doing the best they can so i think with indies i need you guys
28:27
got to be a little bit more patient just i see it all the time seeing people um kind of going crazy you know i ordered a
28:34
swimsuit and it's taking them off and it's like if this person normally had two customers a month and now they have
28:40
20 20 customers it's going to take a little more time um danielle said i remember seeing
28:46
debris on reddit and girlfriend's guide to divorce oh yeah indie brands show up on my
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screen yeah that one was i talked that one was one of those um when they say manifestations because i love
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girlfriend's guide to divorce and i remember watching it and loving the wardrobe i loved the show but i the
29:04
wardrobe pulled me into and i said wow i sure do wish they would get a plus-sized girl on this show i would love to dress up someone prediction
29:10
and i mean i'm not kidding it was like two weeks later i got contacted by and i just said it to myself it was just like
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a just out you know a thought to myself so because i loved you their wardrobe was awesome i really
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loved working with those guys well i mean oh my gosh like so
29:27
i'm so excited for you because i know you got more stuff coming up um when are you gonna have a fall
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collection drop soon i am gonna have a fall collection i am in here making two sets of things because i'm
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trying to decide you know what world i wanna what world are we gonna go with
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where we are where we wish we were you know so you know i'll make a decision on that
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soon and for those you guys who you know are curious like don't worry because as
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normal as as we usually do we will drop her collection like we will recap and share with you
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our favorite pics and the images and the lookbook images for you all um and when you can um shop the
30:08
collection i just want to say thank you so much jasmine for taking your time out
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congratulations again on the vanity fair cover um thank you that is amazing and really
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happy for you um and thank you guys so much for tuning in like we've hit our third what's
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already 30 minutes like can you believe it like we've already wow right now we went by really fast
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and if you guys just tuned in it's okay you guys can rewind and catch from the beginning but we were here with the
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designer behind jabri jasmine elder um and with speaking of curves we do
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this every tuesday and thursday at 12 p.m eastern standard time and 9 a.m
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on the west coast right and we come back every tuesday and thursday meeting with a different designer um
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business owner influencer creator and talking about how we're able to support a small business
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especially now through covent through the pandemic to ensure that we still have them there afterwards
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thank you guys so much for tuning in i am marie denae the creator of the kirby fashionista
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your plus size fashion resource destination and we'll catch you guys on thursday
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bye bye
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