The Blonde Misfit and the Three C's: Chic, Colorful, and Comfortable
Jamé Jackson has always loved fashion, well, style. As a child, she would flip through her mother’s old Essence, Ebony, and Black Enterprise magazines. “I would just look at all the beautiful Black women and how they dressed. I don’t think at that time it registered to me that I could be the person writing those features that I came to love so much, but I definitely grew up seeing us celebrated in those style and entrepreneurial spaces.”
When she got to middle school is when she began experimenting with my personal style and realized she didn’t want to look like everyone else. “I would take inspiration from everywhere — figuring out how to take an idea and execute it into a physical form was exhilarating for me, even at such a young and impressionable age. I would go to the thrift store and find Chanel brooches and tack them onto $2.99 ponchos, or stack diamond bracelets with an outfit that would cost me less than $20.” She says that fashion was just so freeing to her, even when she was just dressing up for herself.
It wasn’t really until her senior year of college that she realized the conversation around fashion wasn’t happening (in the ways it is today), and she loved journalism and clothes enough that she wanted to merge the two into a career.
When asked about her style and how she would describe it, she says it’s tough to do so. “Ugh, the million-dollar question! My style always changes like every six months, it’s hard to keep up with my own style.” She admits to being someone who loves color, volume, and deconstructed pieces in fashion. "My style usually is oversized and lots of accessories, although I pride myself on being able to pivot and switch depending on the event or even just my mood. I grew up in the church and being a curvy girl in fashion, I was always taught to be presentable no matter what that looked like for that day.”
Jamé dresses for comfort. “I know a lot of fashion people don’t do this. Moving to New York has taught me the value of sneakers instead of heels, and anything that’s too tight and won’t make it past a potential 12+ hour workday is a no.” Her friends joke that she doesn’t know how to pick out sneakers, but she just loves the look of the Jordan 1s. “They look good on my big feet and I feel like they instantly streetwear whatever you’ve got on. Of course, there are always exceptions, but for the most part, I dress chic, colorful, and comfortable. The three C’s.”
Whenever Jamé sees herself “struggling” to do anything whether it’s style wise or anything else in life, it’s always been because she was trying to force something instead of just letting it naturally flow. The advice she would give to someone who may be struggling with their own personal style is that you need to know that your style is going to grow and evolve and change, and that’s perfectly fine. “I would say start by first examining what types of things do you like or that you would want to incorporate in your wardrobe (ex. maybe you don’t wear a lot of colors, and you want to start) and do small things to build onto that. Take inspiration from everywhere and work to create whatever “style” means to you. Accessories, shoes, and outerwear are the easiest things to change. Start there and work your way in.”
Jamé has a podcast called TheBlondeMisfit (the same name as her website, www.theblondemisfit.com), which she created after years of building this digital brand and connecting with people online and on social media. She realized that she felt a lot of her followers didn’t know her yet. “You’re taught to be very polished and curated on social media, but nobody tells you how it warps even your own connection to your community. They see perfect photos, celebrity features, brand sponsorships, everything that appears to look glam. But they don’t know the truth of how hard it is to build and remain relevant in industries that are constantly evolving. I am not like a lot of beauty and fashion editors who use their main 9-5 as their ticket to visibility — from the jump, I dedicated my work and energy and money into building my own platform and my own space, and that has come with its own sets of challenges.”
She wanted people to have a better glimpse into what it takes to be in the fashion and beauty space, but more importantly, for people to get to know the person behind the screen and photos. She says that TheBlondeMisfit podcast is just that — “The unfiltered thoughts of a fashion and beauty-lovin’ awkward Black girl. It’s candid, raw, honest, and very chill. I get to laugh and joke and show a lot of my personality that can sometimes fall flat on a screen. It’s a breath of fresh air, and the reception to the podcast has been amazing. It proves you should always leap out on faith.”
When launching her blog, Jamé was doing a ton of research on how to name your website and kept coming up on articles that said you should always include a noun and something that describes you. “That’s why you get so many blogs like, IDK, “Kisses & Mimosas,” LOL.” So she thought about what exactly would describe her as a person. “Misfit came to my mind.” She admits that she never really felt like she fit in growing up, and in the industry. “What I’m looking to do can sometimes feel isolating. I know that a lot of people don’t understand me or my work, but it’s not for me to make them understand. But I know in the Bible God calls his children ‘misfits’ and a ‘peculiar people,’ so I wanted to turn a word that is commonly negative into a celebration of my unique individuality.”
The “blonde” part of the name is simple, she says. “I’ve been blonde since the 10th grade. Once I tried it, I never went back, and it’s definitely an easy identifier of me and the brand. So, I just combined those two things together, and voila!”
It means a lot to Jamé to be viewed as an inspiration and a role model to so many of her followers. “I see the girl whose gone through the fire and everyone sees the shiny diamond on the end. I never thought I would be a person who others could look to and feel inspired by, and just knowing that the work I do and the work TheBlondeMisfit seeks to explore is showing young Black creatives that they can create their own paths when they don’t see one is truly...I have to sit and marinate on that often.”
She admits to be very hard on herself, and while that brute sense of awareness has allowed her to push herself and work really hard, it can sometimes rob her of just sitting still and being proud of what she has accomplished. “Whenever people interact with me and the content, and it does something for them, I know that I am right where God has placed me. I don’t strive to be perfect or compete for the things that aren’t divinely called for me. It’s moving to know I inspire others to walk in their divine calling, whatever that may be.”
The empire Jamé is building is inspiring to many. She is a writer, fashion and beauty editor, and has accomplished many things. She says that the key to her success is remembering your why and being laser-focused on your goal. “There are a lot of business decisions I made early on for TheBlondeMisfit that probably didn’t make sense on paper, but I knew that the investment or sacrifice would pay off. I didn’t have pie charts or fancy analytics that would prove a return on investment, I just had to have that confidence in myself that no matter how the table turned, I would know how to make it work for me.”
She believes you have to be willing to bet on yourself even when there’s no claps, no audience, no cheerleaders. “Even when you have naysayers in your ear telling you you’ll fall flat on your face. I think so much about success is mental and is about discipline. Are you disciplined enough to put the work in and obsess over your craft? What are you actively doing daily to get yourself to your goal?”
When looking at herself in 5 years, she has no idea what she hopes to be doing or what she may have accomplished by then. “And I mean that in every sense of the term.” She says that the industry is constantly growing and changing and she is always finding new things that pique her interest. “As a content creator, it’s important to not tie yourself to any one talent or brand or company — I’m someone who never stays still and finds that she needs to be inspired and constantly moving. I started exploring video at the end of last year, there’s the podcast now, and I do a lot of moderating / hosting / public speaking. Anything I’ve ever dreamt of doing, God has given it to me ten-fold and then some, so I’ve just come to expect greatness from Him and obedience from me. All I know is whatever it is that I’m doing, my only prayer is that it is impactful, it’s lucrative, lol, and that I’m happy.”