Onyii Brown

On Monday, Onyii Brown came and spoke to us about her clothing brand Onyii & Company. She founded her company in 2013 in Houston, Texas. Her career as a designer started with making wrap skirts for her friends. This extended into Onyii having her own Etsy store with these skirts. Later on she started selling on zuva.com and was featured in British Vogue, Martha Stewart, Refinery29 and Essence. She structured her business as an in-home trunkshow and it turned out to be very successful. Her customers are women from ages 25-55, who is also educated and adventurous. They are also diverse and cultural women. Onyii”s best sellers are the basics, even though most of her products are prints. Her inspiration for her prints come from African influences. The skirt she showed us during her visit was reversible, which is rarely seen now in fashion. The best way she helps her brand is by listening to her customers’ complaints. For an example, she told us customers complained about tight armholes, so she fixed them and now has satisfied customers. Social media advertising and online ads are very important to her brand and attract a lot of new customers.

Onyii Brown contributes greatly in the fashion industry in my opinion. I think her brand is very unique and stands out on its own. She doesn’t follow the basic trends that is seen at every other store and sticks to her own. She knows her customers very well and is willing to put the time and effort into fixing whatever problems they need. I enjoy that her brand is mostly prints that are creative and not seen anywhere else. Onyii sticks to what sells in her brand, like the classic wrap skirt. I might use this experience in my future career by sticking to my own ideas even if they aren’t what’s trending or what everyone else is doing. It’s brave to be stand out and be creatively different than others and this could teach me to be more brave as well.