TROPICS WOMAN
What else do you do? Is
the question I used to get a
lot when I was working on
Style Fashion Week Africa.
That question came about
because my partners had
other brands besides Style
Fashion Week Africa. I never understood why I had
to have another brand.
Why couldn’t I just be entirely part of Style Fashion
Week Africa? Anyway as
time went on my brand
developed and naturally
progressed on its own. Did
I ever think that I will be the
Afrikan Princess? Not even
once.
“Get a brand”
they said
Afrikan Princess came
about in an unlikely way.
I would meet people
and they would say that
I fit anyway in Africa and
when I started travelling
the locals would assume
that I was from that
particular place. Out
of nowhere people
started
a ddressing
me as Princess and I
really loved the hospitality I received.
Afrikan Princess was
officially born and I
started embracing
it. Prior to the birth
of Afrikan Princess I
had trouble naming
and branding my
blog which back
then was just my
name and surname.
Afrikan Princess gave
me the guidance for my
blog and I started fully embracing my undying love for
Africa and my blog is one of the
ways I choose t show love to Africa.
What I love about this journey is that I
never forced it, it just happened the way
it wanted to. I guess what I am trying to
get to is that some people realize their
purpose in life quite early while for others it takes longer. The most important
page 32 | Issue #59
thing is to respect the process
and be patient and you will
get what is yours. In this world
of ours it is very easy to feel
like you are not doing enough
compared to your peers. But
what we often overlook or not
consider is that we have very
different journeys. There is a
time in my life when everything
was going wrong to a point
where I was depressed. You
see I always had a plan set out
that when I finish high school I
was going to go to University,
finish my degrees and do articles and then Ta da... I would
be a chartered accountant.
But, things didn’t quite work
that way. I struggled in my
first year at University of Watersrand. The transition was not
smooth at all.
So since things had not gone
according to plan I had to
let them unfold as they
wished. I started listening
to my creative side that
I had suppressed for too
long. I started creating,
started living through
people’s creations and
I started fully loving myself and letting all parts
of me show. Not limiting myself has landed
me here. It has landed
me to all the awesome
opportunities thus far
including this particular platform writing as
a Tropics Voices Ambassador.
If I had to go back in time
and do it all over again, I
would not change a single
thing because everything I went
through has made me this strong
woman that I am today. I am proud
of the royal in me that never thought will
get this much love from Africa and beyond. Although the Afrikan Princess was never into being
a brand but through being me I have become a
brand. Not the brand that everyone around me
had in mind but I love the young woman I have
grown into.