This Black Girls’s Historical past Month, we’re celebrating Magic Makers making daring strikes in entrepreneurship, leisure, and schooling, and purse designer Cameo de Boré Phillips, the artistic power behind Cameo de Boré clutches, is an ideal match.
Cameo didn’t got down to be a purse designer, however should you ask her now, she’ll inform you it was all the time in her.
“I’m a trend lady,” she instructed BOSSIP. “Whereas I’m not formally skilled, I’ve been a pupil of trend my entire life. I grew up with a really trendy mom and grandmother. Simply watching them, they’d this eye for colour, silhouettes; every little thing.”
What began round 2014–2015 as sketches and trial-and-error DIY tasks turned one thing actual, a bag that wasn’t simply fashionable, however daring and made for ladies like her.
“I used to be watching Girlfriends and Intercourse and the Metropolis, and I saved seeing Joan and Toni with these fantastically structured purses. I couldn’t discover something prefer it in shops. So I began crafting. I most likely made 100 horrible variations earlier than I lastly acquired it proper,” she mentioned.
That “proper” second got here unexpectedly.
“I had one sitting on the mattress and my husband walked in and mentioned, ‘Yeah, that’s dope.’ That was all I wanted. I wore it to church and the ladies went wild. From there, it unfold—regionally, then regionally, and now nationally and internationally.”
Her model, Cameo de Boré, is thought for its daring, outsized clutches. However the luggage aren’t outsized simply to make an announcement, however to truly work for ladies.
“I’m 5, eight and a half [and] I’ve acquired some curves on me too,” mentioned Cameo. “And so for me, it’s necessary to have a chunk that doesn’t get swallowed up by my body and never get misplaced in my collective outfit and every little thing I acquired occurring.”
She continued,
“I’m an enormous fan of having the ability to put on a bag and never have to carry your mobile phone or your key fob in your fingers,” mentioned Cameo. “And so my bag is structured, it’s going to be classc, however there’s a bit little bit of a novel part there. It’s going to hold your mobile phone, your lipstick, your bank cards, your key fob, all of that with ease.”
Every thing concerning the model is private, from the sizing, to the construction to the spirit of her hometown, East St. Louis.
“My metropolis formed me. It’s small however full of trendy, fearless folks. We had modest means, however we confirmed up in furs, in Louis baggage earlier than it was fashionable. Our trend was how we took management.”
That affect reveals up in each bag she makes, however by no means extra so than within the particular assortment she created in honor of her late mom, Sherry.
“She was essentially the most ladylike girl I’ve ever recognized. She was all the time put collectively, all the time polished, even till her final day.”
Cameo paused her enterprise when her mom was recognized with most cancers, changing into her full-time caregiver. After her mom’s passing, she wasn’t positive she’d return to trend in any respect.
“However one thing shifted in me,” she recalled to BOSSIP. “Taking good care of her and serving to her transition gave me a lot perspective. I turned fearless. I believed, ‘If this didn’t break me, what am I actually afraid of?’”
So she relaunched stronger, extra intentional, and surrounded by love, together with a particular My Sheri Amour assortment.
“Her identify was Sheri [and] she liked the tune by Stevie Marvel,” she mentioned, noting how deeply each element was private. “I used to be doubting getting again into issues… after which we had been obtained so properly.”
“That assortment was for her. My daughter, my mother’s nieces, my sisters—they had been all of the fashions. Even the background of the shoot had my mother’s items in it. It was private. And it was so properly obtained. I had been afraid to get again in, however the second I did, doorways began opening.”
Cameo instructed BOSSIP that one factor that by no means will get outdated is seeing her luggage within the fingers of different ladies, noting that it nonetheless provides her butterflies.
“I scroll Instagram and see somebody rocking my clutch, and it by no means feels regular. It’s wild to suppose somebody spent their hard-earned cash on one thing I made with my two fingers. I pray over this enterprise day and evening.”
However Cameo’s influence goes far past trend. She’s been a mentor for over twenty years, guiding younger ladies since they had been tweens and now watching them turn out to be leaders, mothers, and businesswomen in their very own proper.
“A few of them are 30 now, and I’ve recognized them since they had been 11. I deal with them like my very own. I find time for them it doesn’t matter what.”
That perception in sisterhood goes each methods.
“I’ve my mentees, however I even have my mentors,” she instructed BOSSIP. “Girls of their 60s and 70s who inform me after I’m out of pocket. I like that. I inform my mentees, ‘I’ll be your bridge, so that you don’t should journey over the identical stones I did.’ However I anticipate the identical honesty in return.”
For Cameo, the true win is flourishing as a Black feminine entrepreneur, one thing she carved out herself, unapologetically and brilliantly.
“I’m simply honored to take up area. I didn’t come from a household of enterprise homeowners. I needed to determine all of it out, no roadmap. And for years, I used to be clapping for everybody else: my sensible youngsters, my husband. However this? That is mine. That is my time to be celebrated.”
From East St. Louis to ladies across the globe, Cameo’s clutches are greater than equipment, they’re a mirrored image of legacy, love, and unapologetic fashion.
