by Jessica Jones
Joi Imman Hudson is the owner of Joi Iman boutique, an online retailer for women sizes small to 3X; and in addition to offering affordable and stylish clothing, she also offers personal styling and personal shopping. While she doesn’t have a storefront, she launched her website, joiiman.com, where she handles all of her business, in June 2013. A social worker who teaches social work courses at Miles College, Hudson never had any real intentions of starting a business, but has been doing personal styling for family and friends who would seek her advice on what to wear to certain events.
“I’ve been doing [personal styling] for years,” Hudson said. “Not necessarily having it as a part of my business but just with friends. Many times I get, ‘Oh Joi, only you could wear something like that,’ so that’s how it started with me, friends and family.”
Hudson says she’s not into ‘fashion’ and doesn’t necessarily follow trends, which sets her apart from others who allow what’s popular to dictate how they dress.
“I like to say I’m not a fan of fashion, more so a fan of style, and my style is my fashion,” she said. “So I’m more drawn to style than fashion. Fashion means you go more by what the world says is in and I don’t operate that way. I do my own thing and to me it becomes fashion.”
Owning her own business has been particularly rewarding for Hudson who earned an undergrad degree in social work from Alabama A&M University and a masters from University of North Carolina.
“I don’t regret the fact that I pursued social work because [helping people] is naturally who I am,” she said. “But I think if I had more influence with creative careers, I would have possibly chosen a different career path because sometimes when you’re around people that stick to the norm in a sense, that’s what you’re accustom to. I never had anyone around me who was big on entrepreneurship. I just got to a point where I just really told myself, “you owe it to yourself to try something that you love to do.’”
She isn’t the only one doing what she loves to do. Hudson’s husband of four months, Damien Forney is also an entrepreneur. He owns Man-Up Clothing, a line of shirts and hats with inspirational quotations. He came up with the idea for his line in 2007 while he was unemployed and searching for work. As the son of a single mother, Forney felt it was his responsibility to help his mother financially.
“[Man-Up Clothing] was based on my life for a year of not having a job, not being in school and not being able to provide for my mother or take some of the stress off her, so at night I would get on myself and [think to myself] ‘I need to man-up and do something’ and, being someone who puts a lot of pressure on myself I wanted to help out,” Forney said.
He decided to put his ideas on paper at night after working whatever odd job he could find for the day. His shirts now display sayings such as ‘Stand on my own two,’ ‘Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do’ and, of course ‘Man Up.’
Providing a source of inspiration for others is the most important aspect of what he does, Forney said.
“I knew what having a father could do and I thank God that I had good men around me to show me that being a good man could help someone like me. [Owning a business is] real important, growing up always wanting to play football, that was my dream, and I think as an African-American, growing up, we think that that is our only option. That’s something I’ve always wanted to pursue, that’s all I’ve ever known. And to be able to step out and start my own business is a great opportunity and I really just wanted to be able to inspire people. I love to see other people grow because I get happy from seeing others happy. When I was coming up with the idea for the shirts I thought, ‘this helped me, maybe it can help someone else.’”
Hudson’s own experience has inspired her to want to help others as well, she said. Learning about the ins and outs of a business with no prior experience in the field was challenging, especially when it came to social media sites where perceived popularity was often based on feedback in the form of ‘likes’ and ‘thumbs ups.’
“Don’t focus on how many ‘likes’ you have, because behind the scenes you could have one like and have five people tell you they like a particular product, and no one will know about it but you as the business owner,” she said. “I would love to be in the position one day to give other minorities the opportunity to be a part of what I’m doing or help mentor them, to get them to a place of believing in themselves and establishing their own business.”
Hudson’s business is separate from her husband’s, but in their time together they’ve learned a great deal from one another regarding how they handle their businesses. For instance, Hudson says her husband has made her more of a go-getter.
“Professionally, my personality is reserved, because I’m in an office setting,” Hudson said. “And in the beginning I carried that over to my business, not being so aggressive and his personality is not aggressive either, but he’s helped me go after exactly what I say I want, what my vision is and that has helped me a lot. He’s calmer than I am. I’m always on the go, but sometimes you do need to take that moment to think about things and he helps me…balance my temperament.”
As for Forney, he’s learned to be less impetuous when making important business decisions.
“Her professionalism is definitely top notch and that’s something I carry over to my business, so I love that about her because I know I’ll go ahead and do things and create, and I know sometimes you have to have things in order,” he said. “Just watching her is rewarding and I know she’s better at it than I am and she’s my wife so why not have her help me with that, but her professionalism is something I’ve definitely learned from her.”
Hudson’s love of fashion is extended beyond her boutique. She currently has an initiative underway that helps the homeless.
“I’m big on helping people, and the thing about my business is that I’m able to fuse the two”, Hudson said. “So on my website I have a charity page and as often as possible my goal is to network with organizations and start initiatives throughout the City of Birmingham. My first initiative is the 2014 project ‘Bless the Homeless’ and that is a project to get the community involved in what Joi Iman is doing.”
For the Bless the Homeless initiative, Hudson will be collecting items such as combs, brushes, toothpaste, crackers and juice boxes to create Blessing Bags.
“That’s going on now until April 25th,” she said. “And I plan on doing some work and donating some of these Blessing Bags to the YWCA and their transitional housing program. The next initiative will be collecting Cheese-Itz and oatmeal for a youth organization’s after school programs because many times children may not get breakfast at home because they either are not accustomed to it, or don’t have the means or the time to do so, or they may not get dinner at home, so just to be able to contribute something to children’s lives is my next initiative for the following school year just before the school season starts.”
For the future, Hudson hopes to open a physical store, but with a unique twist.
“I would love to be able to fuse my personal styling services with the boutique by having a storefront, but just a little differently. I’d like a truck so I can travel the state of Alabama or even beyond, offering people an opportunity to shop Joi Iman boutique. I’ve been dreaming about this for some time even more, more than having a storefront, so that’s on my prayer list.”
Forney, who has recently moved to Birmingham from North Carolina, is working on getting the Man-Up Clothing brand more exposure throughout the city and spearheading his own initiatives for young men.
“I want to get my name out more so people can know what Man-Up clothing is and the meaning behind Man-Up Clothing which is you have the power to do anything and just being able to see people wear my shirts with pride and just getting my name out there,” Forney said. “I’d like to get involved with the young men in and around the area. I was assistant coach at my high school alma mater so I’d love to get involved with the young men somehow and coach either elementary, middle, or high school, and maybe come up with an organization to help young men without fathers to get them involved in something outside of sports.”
No matter what business ventures they undertake, community work will always be a part of their businesses, Hudson said.
“I see us doing work where we’re helping families and helping boys become men,” she said. “So that’s the thing that ties us together, not just being entrepreneurs. But also us wanting to inspire and be a blessing to those in the community.”
