In My Shell dress

I am so happy to present to you the ……… In My Shell dress, custom designed and handmade by yours truly, Jehania. I made this dress by hand with no pattern and no sewing machine in four days. I sat down with a friend of mine about two months ago and discussed what I should wear in the Beards and Locs video. I really didn’t put too much thought into the outfit for this video at first. I was going to just buy a cheap little dress from Goodwill and call it a day. Then he was like “No, you gotta come harder than that.” So I took a trip to the fabric store, my second favorite place after the studio. I knew what kind of fabric I wanted to work with but I didn’t have a definite design in mind. It wasn’t until after I purchased the fabric that I sat down and sketched the design for this dress.

Some people don’t know that at one point in my life I was very serious about having a career in the fashion industry. This isn’t something that I just started doing. I’ve been sewing and making clothes almost as long as I’ve been making music. I started rapping in 2002. I started making clothes in 2004. Even prior to 2004 I was always altering and redesigning my clothes, cutting them up, adding bleach spots, making my own ripped jeans, cutting up shirts, etc. I still remember being five years old and sketching pictures of girls with unique outfits up until age 20. I kept every single one of those sketches up until two years ago when I lost them. Aside from music, one of my idols was Kimora Lee Simmons. Kimora was the it girl. She had one of the most successful urban womens clothing lines. I grew up at a time when Baby Phat, Phat Farm, Pelle Pelle, Enyce, Sean John, Roc A Wear, LRG, Girbaud and Tommy Hilfiger were the most popular urban brands worldwide. I used to sew small things by hand with only needle and thread. Then in 2006 my mom bought me a Brother sewing machine from Wal-Mart. I made an outfit and a dress on that sewing machine within the first three months of having it. It took me about six weeks to make the dress. I used to get very frustrated with sewing. It’s one of those things where the more often you do it, the better you get at it and the easier it becomes and you can make things faster. I kept that sewing machine for ten years.

My love of fashion will always be present. Even though I was sometimes told, “You have to choose one thing to do. Music or fashion. You can’t do both. You need to focus on one thing and do that.” To me music and fashion are like twins. You can’t have one without the other. That’s one of the fun and great things about being an artist is the clothes and outfits that an artist wears. Your style and clothes are what set you apart from all of the other regular people in the world. Imagine if Lady Gaga made all of the music she made but only wore jeans and a white tee shirt. You probably wouldn’t even be as interested in her music. Fashion and music go hand in hand. That’s what separates artists from the millions of people that wake up every morning and put on a work uniform or that have to abide by a certain employee dress code. People are always intrigued by what an artist is wearing. 50% of it is wanting to hear their music but the other 50% is wanting to see what they are wearing. That’s why artists hire stylists. Majority of people really don’t have any style and don’t even know what looks good on their own body, so they have to pay someone to pick out their clothes and dress them. I’ve always had a great sense of style and I’ve always liked the idea of making and wearing my own clothes that no one had other than myself. That’s part of being Jehania. I know what looks good on me and I know how to coordinate and match colors, prints, fabrics, textiles, etc. I always have. I wouldn’t wear a brand name or designer unless they payed me, to be honest.

My grandmother was a self-taught seamstress that started sewing at the age of seven. She used to make clothes for her dolls as a young girl. She told me she had a needle stuck in her foot that she stepped on when she was sewing as a little girl. It was never removed. She died with that needle in her foot. My grandmother could make literally anything with or without a sewing machine and with or without a pattern. I used to watch her. She made all of my mom’s clothes and cheerleading outfit’s years before I was born. In 1990 she made my mother’s wedding dress with a 20 foot train. I was only five years old but I still remember how beautiful, elaborate and intricately designed that dress was. A lot of people that are older know how to sew, especially in the south. It was very common back then to make your own clothes. Almost every woman over age 60 that I know, is a seamstress and knows how to sew.

I grew up in fabric stores and thrift stores. I get all of my clothes from thrift stores, except for my underwear. I haven’t bought anything new from a mall or department store in over ten years honestly. If you have style then you can shop anywhere and still look nice. What I don’t buy from thrift stores, I order online or make myself. When I’m not listening to beats, writing songs and coming up with video treatments, I spend hours and hours sorting through yards of fabric at the fabric store and coming up with ideas for outfits and dresses. My mother was a single mother of five children. We were thrifting back in the 90s before thrifting was cool because that was all that we could afford. I remember me and my two older sisters dreading going shopping at the Salvation Army and Goodwill but we had no choice back then. So I’m accustomed to shopping at thrift stores and have absolutely no problem with it now. Even if I could afford designer clothes I would probably still shop at the thrift store because you can find very nice vintage clothes at a reasonable price. I always get compliments on my clothes and shoes. ALWAYS. And it is always stuff that I purchased from the thrift store.

A lot of Muslim women also know how to sew. All of my mom’s friends know how to sew very well and have made clothes for me and my mom several times. A lot of Muslim women prefer to make their own clothes because they can’t always find the modest clothes that they like in department stores. Plus they have a lot of children (3 or more) and it’s more affordable to just make their clothes than buy them in the store. Muslim women are really some of the most stylish and fashionable women. They really have a style and swag of their own.

What I like most about the In My Shell dress is that it hugs my body and accentuates my curves. You can also wear it with or without the belt. I honestly shocked my own self this time around. I was a little skeptical at first. This was my first time ever making a dress without a pattern and without a sewing machine. I really didn’t think that it would turn out this good. I am so proud of this dress. I filmed the video in October but waited an entire month to drop this video and debut this dress on my grandmother’s birthday. 11-11. November 11.

Making this dress rekindled so many memories of a teenage Jehan, in my room watching back to back episodes of Project Runway with Tim Gun, Nina Garcia and Heidi Klum, sketching outfits and making clothes in between writing poems and songs. In the 11^th grade I sketched an entire line consisting of 16 pieces. I had a name for the line (which I will not disclose) and even wrote a business plan. The clothing line was supposed to be the next Baby Phat, the next major womens urban clothing line. My high school clothing design teacher, Ms. Tameka Almond was always very supportive and encouraged and pushed me so much to pursue a career in fashion design. All of my high school friends were supportive too because I was always the best dressed. The clothing line never happened but I still continued to make clothes for myself from time to time and the idea kinda fell to the wayside as I got more focused on music. Don’t worry, I’ll never stop writing songs. But it feels good to know that I still got tha juice when it comes to this fashion designing thing. 

I had no plans at all on making a video for Beards and Locs. When I first released “humble beginnings” five years ago, I made a treatment for Beards and Locs but the video never happened for several reasons. I’m so glad that I waited though. I tucked away Beards and Locs and humble beginnings in the back of my mind and forgot all about it. In 2016 I said to myself, “I have to film a video for a song from ‘humble beginnings’ before I move forward with my new music. I owe it to the people that listened to my mixtape but never got a visual for any of the songs. I was actually going to release a video for So Abstract but I didn’t due to legal reasons. Fast forward to 2018. It wasn’t until I read about a six year old boy in Florida being denied his first day of school because he had dreadlocks. I also read an article saying that being denied employment for having dreadlocks is actually legal. I was shocked and disappointed with society honestly. I felt like this visual needed to be seen. I feel like these type of discriminatory situations are an attack on our culture and us as a people. Where can we be our true selves? If not at work or school, then where? Where can we be free, comfortable and celebrated? If we can’t wear our hair the way we want then what CAN we do? I know so many people with dreadlocks, both men and women. I know some that have also been denied employment and discriminated against because of their hair. I feel like I filmed this video at the perfect time. The number of people that I see with locs now has quadrupled since 2013 when I first put out the song. I’m so glad baby Judah was able to make his acting debut in my video. He wasn’t even born when the song first came out. He’s only three years old. I hope you all enjoy this video! 

* Beards and Locs Music Video OUT NOW *

* Song produced by: Jeff the Producer

* Directed and edited by: Jehania

* Shot by: Luis Lopez

* Set design/decorations: Jehania

* Makeup: Shaunya Ly'Nae James

* Hair: Braids – Nico, Ponytail - Jehania

* Styling: Jehania

* Creative direction: Jehania

* Starring:

Fahad Williams - The Loc God (brown shirt)

Buddy - Rasta Locs (mustard shirt)

Judah - Baby Locs (dark green shirt) 

Jehania - Beards and Locs