How Finding Your Niche Will Help You Defeat The Odds With Sharmadean Reid MBE

Grace Beverley sits down with Sharmadean Reid MBE to discuss her impressive and dedicated career journey. Sharmadean is not only a driven and innovative entrepreneur, but a champion in creating safe spaces for women to speak out about their own experiences.

Sharmadean shares her experience of growing three impressive start-ups, including the digital platform ‘Beauty Stack’ and We Aren’t Hoes (WAH) Nails. She went on to become just one of ten female founders to secure venture capital funding in the last decade for her latest venture, The Stack. You'll finish this episode feeling truly inspired.

Vogue trace the cultural history of the black model in fashion, moving from the token black girl to being fully embraced by the scene. Journalist Marcellas Reynolds, whose book this series is based on, goes as far to say “the history of the black model is actually the history of the black person in the United States”.

The first in this six-part series looks at the trailblazers who led the way. Donyale Luna got scouted as a teen and became the first black model on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar - readers cancelled subscriptions, companies pulled their ads. Undeterred, she took the front cover of British Vogue next. 

Ebony magazine and Ebony Fashion Fair were hugely instrumental in inspiring new generations.

Their runway shows brought high fashion, and black models, into everyday, accessible life. The door was now ajar for black models, but predominantly light-skinned black women - a colourism we still see today. “We are a beautiful diaspora, black women have more DNA on this planet than anyone else, we look a million different ways”.

Naomi Sims was groundbreaking to the world of fashion and the wider world. As a dark-skinned, natural haired black model, she was the first on a cover of a magazine that 14 million homes received.

Vogue traces these steppingstones of how one pioneering black model inspired another in a powerful chain that truly demonstrates the impact of representation.

Little Simz's fourth album, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, received the Mercury Prize. The award, which carries a cash payout of £25,000, is given to the year's best British or Irish album. Earlier in 2019, she received a nomination for her third album, Grey Area. The BBC 6 Music poll and the Guardian's list of the best albums of 2021 both ranked Sometimes I Might Be Introvert at the top. Simz won best new artist at the Brit Awards in February, which was her first significant award of the year before winning the Mercury.

The first Caribbean immigrants were told to bring their afro-hair tools and products with them, because there wouldn't be any salons that could take care of their hair in Britain. In 1955, Carmen Maingot established the country's first salon for black women. A few years later, the well-known Trinidadian pianist Winifred Atwell, the first black musician on UK charts, opened The Winifred Atwell Salon in Brixton after fans wrote to her desperately asking where she got her hair done. Atwell made a lasting impact, teaching white hairdressers how to treat black hair, and even developing new products and make-up to match black skin tones. 

Despite there being just 314 salons in the UK today specialising in afro hair styling, the powerful tradition is carried on by African braiders and a growing black entrepreneurship.