WHEN Zimbabwean fashion designer Farai Simoyi first moved to New York City, she was hired as a senior denim designer for House of Dereon, the clothing line by mega-artiste, Beyoncé and her mother, Tina Knowles.
Simoyi recalls one day, standing on the 17th floor of a building in Times Square, the heart of Manhattan and having an epiphany, “Look at how far I have come and how much I have accomplished; I am a Zimbabwean designer on the design team for Beyoncé’s clothing line and my parents were raised in huts in Zimbabwe, Africa,” she said, awed by the trajectory of her life.
Fast forward to today, the London-born, Zimbabwean-raised and American-educated fashion prodigy is the senior designer for Nicki Minaj’s fashion collection, which is available exclusively through K-Mart.
Much like her boss Nicki Minaj, the only woman on the Forbes’ Hip-Hop Cash Kings list (since 2011) who once told a Forbes contributor: “I am not going to fall back from something because it’s never been done before by a woman.”
Simoyi’s foray into fashion took the same tone and tenacity.
“Building my own fashion label from scratch has been a major challenge on its own, but building a brand in one of the most unstable industries is even tougher,” said the Zimbabwean fashion designer.
“But I don’t see myself doing anything else,” she emphasised, resolutely.
— Forbes.com
