Andrea Osei combines diversity with luxurious wedding fashion

Entrepreneur Andrea Osei is always changing, staying true to the values ​​that guide her recent ambitions.

The pharmacist turned fashion designer has already established herself in the luxurious bridal scene, creating silhouettes that draw from her Ghanaian-American upbringing. With a diversity of styles starting from leadership to marketing, Andrea Osei Bride is always growing.

From presenting at Bridal Fashion Week to appearing in a magazine, Osei is on the forefront of creating luxury accessible to everyone. In addition to her skilled milestones, Osei’s influence extends to philanthropy. She co-founded a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting children within the African diaspora.

Osei has so much on her to-do list, but her surroundings and wealthy history encourage her greater than ever. She spoke with BLACK ENTREPRENEURSHIP on her “multidimensional” journey and evolution as a Black woman entrepreneur.

TO BE: You went from pharmacy to fashion. Can you give me a details When did your love of fashion design, especially wedding design, first speak to you?

It was such a serendipitous discovery, truthfully. It had its roots in me seeing my grandmother sewing on her sewing machine, gardening, and doing all kinds of things to beautify our home. So I learned to stitch by hand from my grandmother as a toddler, but I used to be also drawn to math and science and was pushed towards that. I never really considered myself to be “trendy,” mostly because my family didn’t at all times have the means to purchase the most recent and biggest things once I was growing up. My grandmother passed away six months before I got married in 2013, and my aunt, who was also my godmother, bought me a stitching machine in her honor.

I had a natural talent for it, I did kid’s clothes and just a few custom orders. Then I began a women’s ready-to-wear line. People at all times asked me about wedding dresses, but I at all times felt like I desired to do my due diligence and have a much bigger stake in the sport, like studying fashion business before my gender transition. So I did that throughout COVID. Then I made a decision I used to be able to jump into the world.

How do you integrate your upbringing, culture and identity into your work, especially when the silhouettes are based on the classic white dress?

I didn’t understand it at first, but now that I give it some thought, a variety of my fashion inspiration comes from African church culture. I feel that was my first exposure to women wearing it, from the beaded lace to the puffy sleeves, every Sunday. In our country, we wear a variety of what’s called kaba and slit, which is largely a peplum top and a pencil bottom with a slit within the back. But with this next collection, I’m more about texture and structure. I would like it to be elevated and ethereal. Those are the 2 words that come to mind once I describe this next collection. All of this stuff play an enormous role culturally, even when I’m creating my wedding designs. I would like women to feel the best way these women felt every Sunday.

For many Black women entrepreneurs, getting funding to launch their ideas is difficult. Can you explain, financially speaking, your path to starting your corporation? Did you get any angel investors?

I believed in myself, before everything. And if I could give advice to someone who’s attempting to get their business off the bottom, it might be to at all times start with “I’ve got talent” and just jump in, bootstrap and fund it myself. Try to construct a foundation of capital as much as possible. What I’ve present in my journey is that anytime you’re feeling like your personal funds aren’t really stable, it’s really hard to remain focused in your goal. So I’ve used grants, self-funding, and small loans. I have not taken out any big loans and I’ve used crowdfunding. Those are the capital resources that I’ve used throughout my journey as a fashion entrepreneur. But I’m really comfortable with how things are going immediately.

How do you propose to maneuver forward in diversifying this area of interest space in fashion?

It’s hard to be an African-American designer within the wedding industry because it is not diverse. When you hear that fashion must be more diverse and inclusive if you give attention to the wedding industry, it’s much more so, right? And I feel a variety of the unspoken wisdom is that your corporation won’t achieve success when you don’t hire all-white models or when you’re not white or racially ambiguous. We’re moving forward by being very daring in our approach in the case of marketing and branding.

When we are saying we’re about diversity, equality and inclusion, it is not nearly our modeling campaigns. It’s also in regards to the backstage. That’s why we wish to hire people of various races, sexual orientations, backgrounds, religions, etc., because I feel everyone brings their very own flavor and perspective from their culture. And that is very, very helpful to my business as a creative. I really like that.

You provide luxury from a Black perspective for Black and a various demographic. What does that luxury mean?

We’re not going to limit ourselves to what another person defines as luxury. I feel for me, meaning showing up higher than expected each time. It’s ensuring that quality control is “1000.” You’re ensuring that you simply really care about that bride. She must know that you might have her best interests at heart. You are there and you must be involved in her special occasion. Go the additional mile. Make sure that they know that this is not only a luxury wedding dress; it’s among the finest options.

What challenges do you’re thinking that you learned something from? probably the most like are you continue to growing and scaling your corporation?

Don’t attempt to grow too fast. That’s a lesson I’ve learned and it has been reinforced for me. I feel on this world of “microwave on Instagram” success, it’s extremely easy to feel like you are not hitting a milestone fast enough. You’ll see other firms within the industry have reached a certain level. But you do not know what it took for them to sacrifice to get to that time. So it’s really about staying in your lane. Planning is vital, as is consistency.

Raising HOPE is your philanthropic endeavor. Explain the way it was created and what role you play.

So Raising HOPE is a nonprofit that I co-founded with my sister Ellen. Our goal is to offer resources to children within the African diaspora. Our primary focus is children with special needs. The whole reason we began (this enterprise) is because my mom worked with a gaggle of orphans in Dodowa, Ghana. We thought, “Wow, how can we make this more sustainable and expand our reach?” Our focus is on providing resources to the community in addition to tools. When we work with autistic children, we invite their parents to show them tools that they’ll use to return back and help their children.

INWhat do you would like your impact to be lasting?

I would like to construct a legacy of excellence that my (followers) will ultimately inherit and pick up the torch and run with. I also want to go away a legacy that shows black women or girls that you simply haven’t got to be one-dimensional. You can provide yourself permission to evolve and I feel that is really the story of my life. I believed I used to be going to be a pharmacist until I retired. I loved being a pharmacist. When I discovered a brand new love, I gave myself permission to reinvent myself. You should reinvent yourself as again and again as you’re feeling you possibly can in your spirit.