Put on Your Cape: A Word from Our Founder

Starting a new business is an amazing journey, filled with breathtaking highs, crushing lows and everything else in between. There are moments of complete clarity followed the next minute by crashes into utter confusion. Yet, there is nothing quite like seeing your vision come to life… perfectly imperfect, step by harrowing step.

You’d have to be crazy to do this and to start this journey more than once, well you’d have to be mad. So that’s me. Hi, I’m Ashley Jewell, the founder of KimonoXO, and I’m a little mad.  But I’m here because I have a need to share to share my vision with the world.

I’ve done this new business thing no less than four times, starting in 2005 at the age of 24 with a lace wig business that I began in my college bedroom with a student loan refund check. Somehow, I stumbled into success and woke up to $5000 in my account the first day. The. First. Day.  I went on to sell mid six figures worth of wigs my first year in business. And so an entrepreneur was born.

In the years to follow, my wig business lost momentum as Chinese sellers took over the US market and my business model was no longer competitive.  So I started a new company selling bundled hair. But as my personal interests shifted when I grew out my relaxer and puffed out my ’fro, selling wigs and weaves no longer felt authentic to me.  So I closed up shop on selling hair, and started selling African printed headwraps in 2015.  This business, The Urban Turbanista, remains an essential part of my brand portfolio today, yet still I feel the need to grow.

I can still remember the first time I put on a kimono robe over an outfit.  It was a phoenix printed silk robe that I purchased at an indoor flea market (it may have been a bathrobe, lol) but when I threw it on over my shiny black leather leggings and satin shirt, I relished the way that I looked like a caped superhero and how I felt like royalty as my robe shifted in the breeze so wonderfully elevating my ordinary outfit.  By the end of that day, I knew I wanted to sell these robes myself, not just as an addition to my existing website, but as their own thing.  Something about wrapping myself in a kimono just felt so good that I wanted to share that feeling with my fellow humans😊.  And so, KimonoXO was born.

I’m thinking that this work will be the one that takes me to the next level. Spiritually, mentally, fully.  You see, for the first time, I feel like I’m not just selling items for profit, but I’m selling an experience, something made with love, something thats stirs the spirit.  I want us all to feel moved by the fabric in which we drape ourselves as we live our lives… and what a simple way to feel more amazing, more Super, more Human. 

Just put on your cape.

Thanks for joining me on this journey. I love you all! 

-Ashley Jewell, KimonoXO Founder