One of the jewelry designers we always knew we wanted to bring to our site was Khiry jewelry. We love everything Jameel Mohammed stands for and his intentional way of Afro-Futuristic emotion in his collections. Our first season debuted with Khiry, and as we work on our next fall order, we chatted him up on his process, what pieces he loves from his collection, and the type of women who wear the brand.
Tell us about the Khiry brand and your concept for it...
We are an Afro-Futuristic luxury brand. I started this brand in 2016, at the time I was an undergraduate student studying Political Science at UPenn, and we went to Japan where we met the CEO of LVMH Japan He said that the only true luxury brands in the world were created in Paris and Milan, and given history of savoir-faire, in the places we should only expect true luxury brands to come from those locales. And because I am black, I am politically minded and have a history in the luxury fashion sector, I knew that that sort of viewpoint was not only limited, but that there are a ton of other people in the world who would find such a view equally reprehensible, and that was the moment where I knew that this brand had to be a champion for the black culture in the luxury fashion sector.
Where does your inspiration come from?
For me, it's all about looking at different cultural experiences, different historical experiences, different theories, and ideas that were advanced by previous generations perhaps of scholars, of activists and artists from throughout the global African diaspora, and thinking about how these individual units of culture speak to one another and speak to the future for black people.
What is your favorite piece from your winter collection?
One of my favorites pieces from this season that SHOWROOM picked up for their assortment is the Khartoum II Ring with semi-precious stone. The piece started off as one of our core silhouettes which is the Kartoum silhouette, and it's the second edition of that inspiration. We gave it the name Khartoum because there are big, horned cattle that are herded throughout Sudan as a source of value and and of community property and of advancement and investment for the future of the community. We wanted to create a symbol that was similarly significant, similarly indicative of wealth and opulence but also champion to wanting to find a new definition of those things, which is how we came up with our Khartoum ring.
One piece of jewelry every women should own?
I'm very reticent to prescribe what women should do, BUT! that being said, I think a great pair of hoops is a good resource for a ton of different types of people. You can wear it with a dress down look, a dress up look, it can be casual for day, and can help you blend seamlessly into night. Depending on the scale your playing with, it can be even easier to pair with different looks to bring into different context. What my clients always ask for is a piece that is timeless and that doesn't feel too trendy and doesn't come and go or go out of style after the season. For that reason, I feel a hoop is a great option.
Who is the Khiry woman?
Rather than try to create a line that's absolutely typified by one person or say one person is the absolute archetype of this line, I want to create a line that is really about the breadth of the experience within the black experience... and so for that, you know, we now have a black female Vice-President and at the same time we have Meghan Thee Stallion at the Grammy Awards. I want the brand to be about celebrating many types of excellence and many types of these experiences. So for me it's all about putting together different types of people that might not otherwise be celebrated by one brand but as a whole, represent a broad panel of experiences.
To explore the rest of Khiry, head to his Designer Page