Launching My Brand in a Storm I Never Saw Coming

I spent two years creating my fashion brand, set to debut at Target. Months before, the DEI news hit.

January 24 started out like any other day. I prayed, went to a 5 a.m. workout, made pancakes and eggs for my daughters, got them dressed, and dropped them off at school with my husband. Then I was off to my office in Culver City. My team was finalizing production for the fashion brand I’ve been quietly working on since the start of 2023. My phone began blowing up. Text after text, DM after DM. “What are you going to do?” “Are you okay?” The truth is, I wasn’t.

I had already seen the headlines on my phone: Target, where my line was set to exclusively debut, was switching up its approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Since the new administration took office in January, companies across industries had started rolling back their DEI initiatives. I was two years into the production of my first independently owned clothing line; the designs for my first collection were already finished and soon headed to Target. Marketing was shot. For damn near two and a half years, we’d been cooking.

This wasn’t just business for me — it was personal.

Growing up, my late grandmother, Nana, would take me on her weekend shopping excursions, holding my hand and leading me through Nordstrom’s flagship store in downtown Seattle. I’d run my tiny fingers along the racks — St. John knits, Valentino blazers, Escada suits — dreaming of one day seeing my name on the tags and touching a future in which little Black girls like me don’t just wear beautiful things; we create them.

That dream carried me to Howard University, where I turned the yard into my personal runway between classes. The day after I graduated, I moved to New York, where I landed my first internship at Suede, a start-up magazine for Essence, working for a $15-per-day food stipend. I got an internship at InStyle, and after eight months, the beauty director hired me as her assistant.

I spent over a decade climbing a corporate ladder in the fashion-magazine industry that wasn’t built for me, in rooms where I was one of the few who looked like me. I watched luxury brands create beautiful things for bodies that stopped at size 14 (and that 14 really fit like an eight). I saw price points that excluded the women who were setting the culture, driving the trends, making fashion fashion — an entire underserved community that deserved to feel the transformative power of beautiful clothes but couldn’t access it.

And yet around 2017, the industry did begin to shift. More Black editors were leading major publications, like Teen Vogue. More models of color, such as Duckie Thot and Adwoa Aboah, were walking runways that once ignored them. Beauty influencers like Shayla Mitchell and Alissa Ashley were in campaigns for Maybelline and E.l.f. Cosmetics. Rihanna launched Fenty Beauty with 40 shades of foundation; she gave me the exclusive to break the news since I was one of the only Black editors. These changes, though incremental, opened doors in ways I hadn’t seen before.

In January 2020, I was invited to speak on a panel at Target’s headquarters in Minneapolis. After the panel, I met Pamela Brown, the head of talent partnerships at Target. Her team — made up of people who reflect a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives — contains some of the leaders behind Target’s most impactful collaborations. She brought Tabitha Brown to Target, creating a cultural moment that resonated deeply with the community. That evening over dinner, Pamela asked if I’d ever want to work with Target. What started as a casual conversation became the beginning of a beautiful partnership.

Six months later, she called with an opportunity to tell my HBCU story for Target’s Black Beyond Measure campaign. It was all about how Nana, a Southern University grad herself, would take all of her grandkids on a two-month summer road trip to hit every HBCU across the U.S. in honor of her retirement. She was the reason I went to Howard and became a Delta. She was my personal fashion icon. I was given the freedom to shape this story for the campaign in my own voice, and that meant a lot to me.

After that, Target hired me as its first design partner for Future Collective, its new creator-led fashion line. I brought my vision to Target’s framework, designing within its parameters while still being true to myself and my community. Even with those guardrails, something magical happened: Women everywhere showed up, especially Black women. To say I was proud would be an understatement. My Future Collective designs sold out immediately — four drops, all epic, with Target having been cited stating that sales expectations were exceeded by somewhere between 300 to 500 percent.

When my final Future Collective collection wrapped in January 2023, Target’s merchant team flew out to Los Angeles to meet with me over dinner, during which everybody asked, “What’s next?”

I had always wanted to create my own line, a dream that had been with me since I was 7 years old.

It was Gena Fox, Target’s senior vice-president of apparel and accessories, who called me to explore how we could bring my vision to the company’s customers. From the start, Gena was incredibly supportive and believed in me, encouraging me to build something entirely my own. We worked together on a distribution agreement for Target to be my exclusive retailer for two years with the ability to take my brand anywhere I wanted after that. This wasn’t a collab; it was ownership. Only 7.3 percent of U.S. fashion designers are Black. Less than one percent of brands sold in U.S. retailers are owned by diverse founders. So ownership was important to me.

In a perfect world, when I dreamed of where my clothing line would live, Target was always the place because of its significance in the Black community. “Tar-jay,” as we called it, was our girl. It was a term of endearment. I saw the company carry Black-owned brands like the Lip Bar, Camille Rose, and Mielle Organics, giving shelf space to Black women long before it became trendy or a newfound pledge to do so in 2020.

My first order of business was hiring Crystal White, a Black woman and RISD alum who had designed for Abercrombie, Donna Karan, and Skims. She became my VP of design. We’d both peeped the gaps in the industry and were aligned on creating something that had never been done before. We built a team that looks like the world: Black, white, Asian, LGBTQ+, 20-somethings through 60-somethings. We mapped out every detail — hangtags crafted from hefty card stock, a color palette of creamy ivory and sleek black, and adjustable waistbands to accommodate multiple body types and prevent waist gaps for curvy women. Every detail was intentional, from fabric to fit to finish.

Then January 24, 2025, happened. Target announced a shift to the company’s DEI initiatives. Pamela called me right away, insisting that we meet in person. The next day, she flew to L.A. with two senior executives. We sat across the table, and they looked me in the eye. Their message was clear: “Our support of you and our partnership is not wavering.” My understanding was that Target’s commitments to inclusion would essentially now live under a program called Belonging at the Bullseye. It was their way of saying, and the way I took it, that the promise was still there, just under a different name. They assured me Target’s focus on representation and inclusion for all would continue, just through a different approach.

But as the weeks went on, Target hadn’t issued a statement clarifying its commitment to the public or offering any reassurance. Frustration had escalated into a national boycott that grew bigger by the day. Inside, the company continued to check on me, but publicly it stayed silent. Meanwhile, I was getting questions from every angle. Family calling. Friends texting. My group chat was asking me to answer questions I couldn’t answer. The silence felt dismissive, almost as if Target didn’t care. My community and others wanted the company to stand up and say something. We deserved that. The truth is no matter how many times I asked when that public statement was coming, it was beyond my control.

I had to step away from social media for a while, but too often I found myself scrolling through comments that left me crushed. My whole career, I have been loud about my Blackness and proud of it. The fear was not about whether people would like the clothes themselves; what kept me up at night was the fear that my community would think I “sold out.” Every project I have touched has been rooted in us, led with us, and built for us. Still, I watched Black creators, like Kai Cenat, get dragged online for partnering with Target just months before my own launch. And while the noise grew louder, I had to block it out and keep building, staying focused on designing my second and third collections.

I cannot lie — there were days that I considered giving up and quitting. But I had signed this contract two years prior, and I thought about what Nana would want me to do. She would tell me to keep going, to finish what I started, and to use my seat because this is bigger than me. I knew if I was going to stay the course, it would be from a seat of advocacy, courage, and making a difference for others. That vision is also why I asked Target to support Project KBB: an HBCU fashion design student fellowship. The program gives design students on college campuses the head start I never had with full-tuition support, paid internships on my design team in L.A., and living expenses covered. For the next generation, it’s a chance to gain experience, build confidence, and step into the industry with momentum and support. And if Target could do this for me, it could keep doing it for others through the pipeline programs.

Finishing what I started is about accountability and working with Target’s leadership to say, “Here are the gaps, here are the needs, and here is how we can do better.” This process has forced me to hold two truths at once: frustration with a company making decisions beyond my control and not wanting to defend a corporation that hasn’t given my community answers — as well as gratitude for the leaders and teams I’ve worked with for five years. They have championed my work, and the work of other women of color, in ways that I will always appreciate. Some I sincerely now call friends.

On Monday, I dropped the promo for my new line and was moved by all the comments from Black women. I fear that when they find out it is at Target, they will be disappointed. They are justified in wanting and deserving answers — and no matter what, I stand for them.

In just a few weeks, my line will be available in select Target stores nationwide. Nana would be proud. Most of all, I am proud. I can’t tell anyone where to shop or how to spend their dollars. I fully respect the decisions of others. But I do know this: I am a woman of faith, and this moment is not by accident. If we treat every setback as a reason to exit, we risk losing the chance to create the kind of collective change that moves us further faster.

The KBB by Kahlana brand will be available at select Target stores nationwide and at Target.com on September 21.

Used for Informational Purposes Only. All Rights Reserved to The Cut c/o Kahlana Barfield.