Black Excellence Featuring Designer of Khiry
For the month of February we are featuring some of our incredible black partners, celebrating their work and talents.
The New York-based Afro-futurism jewelry line Khiry, was founded by Jameel Mohammed in 2016. The brand is known for its sleek, minimalist pieces made of semi-precious and precious stones.
Jameel was an undergraduate studying political science in college and aimed to create a line of his own. After being told by the CEO of a Luxury goods company that great designers only come out of Milan and Paris, he started his path to success through jewelry based off of the culture, art, and heritage of the African Diaspora.
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Q: What does a typical day look like for you and what is one thing that is essential for you to do everyday?
JM: " I wake up. The team comes over and we check in about our priorities for the day—a business is not just design but all of the other aspects of making sure that it runs well. I will typically work-work-work-work until 6pm or so, roll a joint, take a nap, have dinner on the later side, and then return to work. It’ll usually be on something more creative or a longer-term project, whether that’s designing a new collection or sculpting specific new studio pieces or something like that. That lasts until early morning, and then I’ll go to sleep and start the next day all over. Before COVID, I would’ve been making runs to the jewelry district, etc., but this is the reality of my typical day. This is the truth."
Q: What are you looking forward to this year in relation to your collections/work?
JM: " I’m looking forward to the increasing breadth of offerings for the brand, from launching our fine jewelry collection to pushing our Demi-Fine collection even further by coming up with new concepts and silhouettes. I’m excited to let the world in on the broader KHIRY universe that I’ve envisioned in my head, and to continue developing the infrastructure that allows me to be even more creative in the future. I’m excited to do a lot of collaborations with folk, and to see how my conversations develop with other peoples’ work and ideas."
Follow Khiry at (@khiryofficial).
Sherri McMullen wears Khiry.
McMullen model wears Khiry.
Q: If you had one iconic piece from your current collection what would it be?
JM: "The Jug Drops. I love the Jug Drops. They’re a symbol of Black resiliency—resiliency through this real and allegorical desert. They’re a store for the libations that we all desperately need in this pre-Afrofuturist hellscape. They’re about unspillable life, and a vision of the world that reifies the value of unspillable life.."
Q: What is something important for others to understand about your brand?
JM: "KHIRY is an Afrofuturist luxury brand. The purpose of this brand is not about affirmation—it’s about creating space for exploration about our liberation. What can be lost in conversations, in certain corners, is the humanity of Black people; people respond to circumstances in both good and negative ways. KHIRY is an Afrofuturist luxury brand, not an Afroutopian luxury brand. It’s not about how to imagine you are in a better place or affirm that wherever you are isn’t so bad. It’s about exploring what it’s going to take for us to get to that point, in a way that’s simultaneously fantastical and realistic. The pieces emerge out of a real depth of thought about what it will truly take to liberate us. They come out of conversation with our humanity, and the parts of us that love luxury, even when luxury has for so long been premised on our destruction, even when we’ve been casualties of the luxury industry. And yet we strive to help each other, and to love, and be free. The words “Afrofuturist luxury brand” offer me the ability to comment on the true breadth of experience—on the fantastical beauty and grandeur, the struggle for a better world."
"We are Third Crown and we are Bold and Dynamic."
Jameel wears Khiry.