In 2022, we launched She’s Next in Fashion, Empowered by Visa, an annual campaign created to provide resources and amplification to women-owned small businesses in fashion and beauty. Last year, we spotlighted 50 incredible participants in the U.S. and supported them with cash grants and inclusion in marketing campaigns.
This year, we’re continuing to evolve our support of 50 new small businesses with over $500K in cash grants and digital and social content to help their businesses thrive.
Visa’s commitment to help under-represented, undiscovered talent isn’t a fad, and we’re excited to celebrate this season’s collection of head-turning entrepreneurs. Meet the 2023 participants below.
Clothing
Aliya Wanek
Aliya Wanek is an eponymous womenswear label that focuses on exploring the connection between one’s identity and style. Her mission is to create comfortable, stylish clothing ethically and sustainably as an extension of the wearer’s individuality.
Anima Iris
Wilglory Tanjong created a high fashion brand bringing luxury handcrafted products to the mainstream market. It is also a technology-driven brand that is industrializing Africa through retail.
Anaak
Anaak is the rare fashion label that’s elegant, beautifully made, easy to wear, and sustainable too— from organic fabrics to the women artisan groups who founder and designer Marissa Maximo employs around the world. Anaak hopes to empower women by giving them work and keeping their traditional crafts alive in an age of fast fashion.
CHABELLA
Chabella Gomez founded CHABELLA, a sustainable apparel brand providing fashion-forward womenswear with their signature multi-wearable shirts and dresses made in NYC, striking a balance between fashion and sustainability. With the mission to empower women through fashion, help streamline their closets, and provide timeless womenswear while being mindful of people and our planet.
COOL Creative
"Create Out Of Love" is the go-to brand founded by Johanne Wilson for thoughtfully designed, high-end fashion that makes a real statement with empowering messaging and artwork. The collection includes a full range of timeless varsities and leather jackets, iconic sweatshirts, and tees; and accessories (including leather handbags). Black owned, women-led and made by proven artists.
Conrado
Angela Sison founded Conrado, a sustainable womenswear brand that has upcycled over 40,000 yards of deadstock fabrics from going into landfill. Conrado is produced in small batches by skilled artisans in her small family-ran workshop in the Philippines. Conrado is a WOC-owned, female operated, consciously designed on Martha’s Vineyard, and proudly made in the Philippines.
Eugene Taylor
Letesha Renee founded Eugene Taylor, a genderless design house offering a range of genderless designs that visualize the future of genderless clothing. Inspired by Renee’s grandmother, and designed through a lens of inclusivity, Eugene Taylor is part innovative clothing brand that inspires confidence and part global fashion community that celebrates the diversity and creativity within fashion representing every voice in fashion culture.
HOURS
Hours NY founded by Haroop Kaur and Naaz Gulati, is a modern, high-quality fashion brand punctuated by sustainable pieces made exclusively for sizes 14-28. They believe plus size women should have access to clothing without compromise: beautiful, sustainable, well-crafted items in elegant hues and timeless silhouettes.
Istani
Tehmina Brohi founded a New York based/Pakistan inspired eco-conscious lifestyle brand, full of stories and traditions. Istani celebrates the heritage of what truly means to live between lands by being unapologetically you. They source handcrafted fabrics from devoted local artisans in rural Pakistan. Istani’s timeless garments are designed for modern and conscientious people. Taking inspiration from diverse cultures and the richness of nature aiming to constantly celebrate the curious joy of being human.
Juno Jones
Finally, a safety boot company with women in mind! Juno Jones, founded by Emily Soloby, makes work boots by women, for women, that actually fit women's feet, in the styles women want. Women are entering more industries than ever before, and the small size men's boots just aren't cutting it. Juno Jones' mission is to bring women amazing options in safety footwear and to empower women on the job.
Lukafit Activewear
Mbali Ndlovu is the founder of Lukafit, an empowering and body positive activewear brand. Lukafit’s mission is to center and celebrate women of all shapes and sizes along their health + wellness journeys.
Monzlapur
Founded by Mona Hamid, Monzlapur is a unisex label that creates elevated, urban ready-to-wear and limited-edition attire. Their aesthetic plays with boundaries that define gender, ethnicity and creates fluid and timeless perspectives.
RE—INC
Christen Press is RE—INC's co-Founder and co-CEO. Founded in 2019, RE—INC aims to inspire and propel people to reimagine the status quo — championing equity, creativity, progress, and art. The company offers a reimagined system of products and experiences that provide the strength and community to make a positive impact in each individual's own way. RE—INC's core: building the RE—INC world through collections of sustainably-made gender-free fashion and fostering a community of reimaginers in a digital membership experience that sparks greatness in all of us.
Samii Ryan
A women’s streetwear and lifestyle brand based in Los Angeles and founded by Samii Ryan in 2017. The brand is inspired by nostalgia and growing up as a youth in the 90’s. Combining trendy silhouettes with a feminine streetwear twist.
Santos by Monica
Monica Santos is the founder of the Latina-owned NYC-based brand focusing on timelessness, quality, and sustainability. Santos produces items that are hand-made to order or small batches locally in NYC using innovative natural textiles, with the brand’s most notable items being their handbags crafted from a cactus-based biomaterial. For every item made, Santos plants a tree with One Tree Planted.
Selva Negra
Selva Negra is a Latina and Filipina-founded contemporary fashion label committed to ethical production and sourcing sustainable materials while celebrating individuality through story-telling and expressive design. Kristen Gonzalez is the founder of the ready-to-wear inclusive brand as well as co-founder of In Todo, a curated craft fair bringing visibility to the craft of BIPOC creatives in their communities.
Stuzo Clothing
Stoney Love, founder of Stuzo Clothing, a gender free brand designed to invoke thought and emotion. A brand for the non-conforming and bold at heart with pieces that are gender free as Stoney prefers to call them because clothes don’t have any organs last time they checked. Inspired by love, people, and life. Whatever shape or form you choose to exist in, Stuzo Clothing celebrates that!
Taylor Jay Collection
Taylor Jay created a brand that empowers women with beautiful, versatile, comfortable, sustainable fashion basics that easily adapt to any lifestyle. Their clothing is thoughtfully designed and tested for everyday use, but Taylor Jay’s idea of everyday comfort is far from ordinary.
TJL Collection
Tiffany Jones-Lewis, a women’s fashion designer who had a journey beginning at the age of 14. Standing 6’1”, she became interested in sewing when she found it difficult to shop for clothing items that fit her tall frame. Her brand focuses on everyday wear and specializes in pants and jumpsuits for women 5’9” and taller. Her goal has always been to help women feel beautiful day to day without the stress of shopping.
Undra Celeste New York
Undra Celeste is a modern multicultural women's designer who designs clothes that invoke confidence and an unapologetic presence. Undra Celeste New York is the perfect mix of professional dressing and statement dressing. The goal is to empower multicultural women to show up to work feeling like their authentic selves exuding confidence by providing modern, fun, and bold workwear.
Vintage Souls
Danielle Brown founded her ready-to-wear line geared towards women on the go. Their casual styles have a high-end aesthetic and a luxurious hand feel, whilst complimenting the female form. Fabrics are carefully selected to ensure each piece exudes the best quality and then washed in innovative dyes and softened to provide the coziest feel.
Yele LLC
Popularly known as “Yelestitches”, a luxury fashion design brand that creates unique and authentic Adire fabrics and fashion tied to the Yoruba heritage. The Founder, Abisola Yelé Oladeinde, provides custom-fit outfits for black women ensuring they feel confident and beautiful. Yele LLC invests in educating aspiring fashion designers and aims to create a "House of Yele" to mentor and support upcoming designers from diverse backgrounds.
Beauty
AbsoluteJOI
A physician founded, clean skin care brand for the unique anti-aging needs of people with melanin-rich skin. Anne Beal’s proprietary trademarked formulas are designed to optimize skin health. Rather than fighting your skin, AbsoluteJOI products want to balance, nourish, and protect it. Since most people don’t have time for complicated skincare routines, they take a minimalist approach to skincare and offer the essential elements for an effective skincare routine that is based on science, not hype.
Anne's Apothecary
Founder Anne Lawoyin, a nurse who always had a passion for skincare. After a family tragedy and working long hours in the hospital, she noticed the emotional and physical toll it took on her skin. She started experimenting with homemade skincare products using natural ingredients blended with science backed aromatherapy oils and found that they worked wonders for her skin. She soon created Anne’s Apothecary, a brand with natural ingredients, high quality, and affordable prices that her customers love.
Àuda.B
A luxury non-toxic nail lacquer brand founded by Samara Walker, bridges the gap between clean beauty and bold, fashion-forward experiences for the multifaceted beauty enthusiast. Their products are reflections of the untapped market encompassing various ethnic backgrounds yearning to experience clean beauty in a digital, newfound way.
BarBella Co.
Where nail care, health and conscience go hand in hand! Portia Mathis created a brand that helps amateur and professional nail artists add some pop to their lives by bringing high-fashion colors to their fingertips (literally). With their unique products designed to avoid allergies, improve nail health, and protect the planet, you can rock those bold hues without any worries!
Christina Choi Cosmetics
A brand for women empowerment with a strong emphasis on Asian American, AAPI beauty. Providing makeup services and education called The Choi Method™ and a multi-functional cosmetic line created for AAPI beauty needs. Through their work of conducting masterclasses, 1:1 makeup lessons, virtual workshops, and makeup appointments, they are creating and cultivating a safe space for deeper conversations where individuals from the AAPI community celebrate their unique beauty.
Daybird
Whitney McElwain founded an anti-beauty beauty club that’s breaking up with societal standards of beauty and redefining them on their own terms. They’re all about showing up for your day, just as you are. Daybird has created a new category of hybrid products called skin wear: clean makeup formulas with clinically active skincare ingredients so you can wear less and benefit more.
DEMIblue
Michelle Robinson’s journey was inspired by her cancer-surviving mom. Witnessing her mom's inability to express her bubbly personality through her usual nail routine because of the harsh chemicals that made nail polish, Michelle decided to act. DEMIblue is now disrupting the nail care industry by not only educating women of the toxic chemicals found in many conventional brands and offering a healthier choice, but gaining retail placement as one of a few African American Female owned nail polish brands across the nation to do so.
Gilded Body
Gilded Body was founded by Blair Armstrong upon the belief that botanically-driven, dermatologically-developed skincare shouldn’t apply only to our complexions. Drawing from the purifying, restorative practices of ancient whole-body bathing rituals, each Gilded Body product creates a layered experience that engages the senses and invites the user to slow down and luxuriate in the art of body care. Inspired by the time-honored tradition of adorning exquisite objects using whisper-thin gold leaf, Gilded Body crafts skincare essentials and accessories that nourish and beautify, elevating the sacred body to its most brilliant form.
Gently Soap
Rooted in the agricultural legacy of her Black farmer grandparents, Gently Soap was created by Kristen Dunning through collegiate horticultural science research after she struggled with a lifetime battle with eczema. Gently Soap focuses on joyful, luxurious bathing experiences with colorful, botanically infused bar soaps with no essential oil or synthetic fragrances. Their award-winning soaps allow those with sensitive skin and skin conditions to break away from boring, harsh bar soaps and truly experience the joy of bathing.
Karité
A natural shea butter-based skincare line formulated by three sisters from Ghana, one of whom is Dr. Naana Boakye, a top-ranked celebrity board-certified dermatologist. Karité’s products are made with unrefined shea butter sourced from Ghana, with shea nuts farmed by women co-operatives. All products are non-toxic, free of synthetic dyes, harsh ingredients, and parabens.
Kubra Kay Skincare
After experiencing skin problems, Khadidja began seeking a new skin wellness approach. While traveling the world, she saw that different cultures relied on various powerhouse ingredients like turmeric, tea tree oil, and sugarcane to address their skin concerns. Kubra Kay Skincare was created to combine Khadidja’s deep breadth of product knowledge with the powerhouse natural ingredients she came across during her travels and within her rich heritage at home.
Naturally London
Chris Cabrera, founder of Naturally London, believes that wellness is rooted at our feet. She created a health and wellness company creating sustainable, quality-crafted foot and hand care. Their results-driven, earth-based formulations are crafted to maintain healthy feet and hands.
Nopalera
Nopalera, founded by Sandra Velasquez, is leading the Brown-space opportunity with its iconic and culture forward bath and body products that celebrate and elevate Latin@ culture. Taking inspiration from the nopal cactus, an ancient symbol of Mexican culture and one of the most sustainable, nourishing, and versatile plants in the world.
Ornami
A clean body care that makes the mundane a moment with fresh takes on classic staples for the skin below the neck. Tackling skin’s biggest enemy, stress, through innovative neurocosmetic formulas developed specifically for the body's skin. Ornami is better, badder body care founded by Yewande Masi.
Pear Nova
Pear Nova is an inclusive, vegan, non-toxic nail + beauty brand created to celebrate all skin tones. Founded in Chicago, IL, the conscious + cruelty-free company is a product of founder Rachel James’ love for art, zeal for travel, and desire to encourage all to indulge in luxurious and affordable self-care.
Ries
Founder Megan Graham was constantly traveling and as a curly haired woman of color, she found that the products she was using didn’t come in a travel size. After years of plastic bags, wasted products, goop leaking all over suitcases and tons of trial-and-error, she started Ries, the only refillable, reusable travel-size bottle designed for beauty and made of recycled materials.
Sincerely, Bädé
Sincerely, Bädé, a black-owned, impact-driven wellness brand redefining self-care routines to reflect conscious consumers' modern values. Offering both small batch body care products and in-person wellness experiences through hands-on workshops. Their products are designed to relieve, relax, and renew the body while inclusive of the cultural personal care practices of our customers. Also providing workshops to corporate companies as well as community centers, especially in predominantly low-income areas, where attendees have the chance to DIY natural products, decompress and pursue a healthy, creative outlet.
Sḵwálwen
Sḵwálwen Botanicals is an Indigenous skincare brand that honors cultural knowledge, Indigenous plant science and self-care. Founded by ethnobotanist Leigh Joseph of Squamish First Nation, Sḵwálwen provides gentle and effective skincare and wellness products that draw from the ceremonial aspects of plants. Incorporating sustainably harvested and sourced botanicals, Sḵwálwen unites ancestral traditions with modern beauty rituals, empowering people to connect to themselves and the natural world.
Spadét
Annabelle Santos created all-natural wellness products for skin concerns, beauty, body, and hair care. Made to help you look and feel better inside and out. With their olive soap and olive glycerin, Spadét specializes in making products that increase the exchange of oxygen and nutrients throughout the body for healthier looking skin.
The Established
Founded in 2019 when Essence Williams was struggling to find relief from a life-long battle with keratosis pilaris, a pesky skin condition that caused dry rough patches and tiny raised bumps behind her arms and legs. In response to a lack of options that successfully targeted body care gripes inclusive of her skin, Essence started researching and developing her own formulations creating products with powerfully packed with nutrient-dense, omega rich compounds that are meticulously handcrafted and intentionally designed to usher in a breakthrough.
Wildling
An acupuncturist, herbalist, and holistic esthetician, co-founded Wildling with the intention to unite communities through their passion for time-honored, alternative healing and to restore the health, wellness, and longevity of your skin, as well as your mind, body, and soul. The products and tools created are thoughtfully crafted with clean, nontoxic, earth-based ingredients handpicked for their holistic benefits and cosmic influence.
Accessories
ALLY Shoes
A female-led, innovative fashion brand that produces pain-free heels with a patented, ergonomic support structure and inclusive sizing options (US 4.5-12, four different widths). Created by Samantha Dong, who was frustrated with the limited footwear options following a foot injury, Ally Shoes aims to empower women through fashion by designing stylish and comfortable heels for all women. Handcrafted with premium materials, every pair of Ally Shoes is an investment piece that lasts and comes with an optional fitting process to ensure the perfect fit.
Cesta Collective
Courtney and Erin’s mission-based brand, Cesta, focuses on a meaningful supply chain with integrity. Their baskets are handwoven by hand by female artisans in Rwanda, Africa, using locally sourced, renewable resources. Each piece is finished by hand in Italy with carefully chosen sustainable materials. Cesta’s hope is to create economy in the developing world and to promote female empowerment through joyful, ethically made accessories.
Cheyanne Symone
Brittany Turner is the founder and artist behind the luxury indigenous jewelry brand, Cheyanne Symone. Brittany started the company in 2018, when she saw a need for high quality and sustainable indigenous style beaded earrings that were versatile enough to be worn every day in a professional work environment and yet bold enough to make a statement. Cheyanne Symone is the combination of her identity as an indigenous (Haliwa-Saponi) woman, environmental/energy scientist, and an artist.
de María
Daniela and Genoveva founded de María, an ethical accessories line celebrating the power of design collaboration beyond borders. The brand works with artisan workshops in Mexico to co-create unique pieces using local materials. de María believes in ethical manufacturing, fair wages, long lasting designs, creative collaboration, and celebrating traditional design techniques.
Vintage Royalty
Meena Osei-Kuffour brands goal is to instill confidence in the wearer, as each product is uniquely designed to allow everyone to explore their own individuality. Vintage Royalty’s product is about versatility- you can throw on the jewelry with a tee shirt and jeans as easily as you could with black tie attire.
Vontélle
The concept for Vontélle was born out of a need of both founders Tracy Vontélle Green and Nancey Harris, who each lost their eyewear within the same year and wanted vibrant patterns, better fitting glasses and to purchase from a Black-owned brand. When they did not find what they wanted, they created it. Vontélle is a black women owned, designed, and operated luxury eyewear company providing bespoke textiles and prints from the African Diaspora on optical frames and sunglasses.
ZAAF
Abai Schulze established ZAAF with the goal of creating economic empowerment for African artisans and a new perspective on global luxury. Their vision is to focus on the continent’s strengths and amazing cultural richness by designing innovative handmade leather goods and accessories for the international market. ZAAF believes creating job opportunities is one of the most sustainable approaches to effective economic development.