Shades & Layers
Shades and Layers is a podcast focused on black women entrepreneurs from across the globe. It is a platform for exploring issues and challenges around business ownership, representation and holistic discussions about the meaning of sustainability in an increasingly complex global context. Conversations are wide- ranging and serve not only as a Masterclass in Entrepreneurship but also provide wisdom and tools for Successful Living. It is a space for meaningful conversation, a place for black and other women of color to be fully human and openly share their quirks and vulnerabilities.
Guests include prominent figurers in the beauty, fashion and wellness industries both in the Northern Hemisphere and the Global South.
Dr. Theo Mothoa-Frendo of USO Skincare discusses her journey from being product junkie to creating an African science-based skincare range. Taryn Gill of The Perfect Hair is a brand development whizz who discusses supply chain and distribution of her haircare brands. Katonya Breux discusses melanin and sunscreen and how she addresses the needs of a range of skin tones with her Unsun Cosmetics products.
We discuss inclusion in the wellness industry with Helen Rose Skincare and Yoga and Nectarines Founder , Day Bibb. Abiola Akani emphasizes non-performance in yoga with her IYA Wellness brand and Anesu Mbizho shares her journey to yoga and the ecosystem she's created through her business The Nest Space.
Fashion is all about handmade, custom made and circular production with featured guests like fashion designer Maria McCloy of Maria McCloy Accessories; Founder and textile/homeware designer Nkuli Mlangeni Berg of The Ninevites as well as Candice Lawrence, founder of the lighting design company Modern Gesture. These are just a few the conversations on the podcast over the past three years.
Shades & Layers
President Honey with Rendani Nemakhavhani (S3, E3)
This week, Shades and Layers is all about being Ghetto Fabulous with one of my favorite South African illustrators, Rendani Nemakavhani, better known as PRSDNT Honey!
To say that I love her work would be an understatement. It’s not only the images that she creates that I find striking, but the way in which they are presented. And, also, her why not spirit is infectious. She approaches life and work with curiosity and she’s truly not afraid to try new forms of expression for her work.
In her latest work, she ventures into the world of fashion and if you are lucky enough to live in Johannesburg, you can now buy some of her illustrations printed on stretch satin to wear, frame or do whatever with.
Our conversation centers around the accessibility of art, affordability when there are bread and butter issues, making art that is a conversation starter, the kinds of conversations she wants to be having about her own work and how black people are introduced to art.
We also discuss what I believe is our common areas of interest: women and blackness, being an outsider and relationships with the women in our lives. She talks extensively, deeply and fondly about her relationship with her late grandmother.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Gerard Sekoto - South African artist an musician
South African Protest Art - Posters created (mostly) anonymously under apartheid to protest the repressive regime that ruled between 1948 and the early 1990s.
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