National Black Business Month Brand Spotlight: The Taylor Jay Collection

Every year in August, here at Queen Anna House of Fashion, National Black Business month is an event we take pride in. As a Black Owned Brand, we know the importance of sharing our brand partner's stories while also letting the world know who we have as vendors in our boutique that we can stand by as a brand partner. 

When Black engineer Frederick Jordan and Black historian John Templeton ushered in this themed month in 2004, the innovators wanted to highlight and firmly underscore the importance and benefit of Black businesses of all sizes in the US. Championing is our top-shelf priority at Queen Anna House of Fashion. We’re delighted to put a loud-and-proud spotlight on our Black-owned businesses for this illustrious month.

The business we’re highlighting: Taylor Jay Collection.

Bay Area native Taylor Jay has been a fashionista since day one. She sojourned to Los Angeles to hit it big and made sure to achieve nothing less than that. After carving her path through the California School of Design, where she studied fashion merchandising, she stamped her indelible mark on the fashion industry and opened her boutique at the age of 23.

Taylor’s created momentum stayed steady uphill, and upon her return to her old stomping grounds in the Bay Area, she opened her second boutique in her hometown. Despite already achieving some very lofty goals, Taylor created her eponymous line with the inspiration of her journey and body challenges.

Spanning decades, women in fashion have notoriously been tailored to a particular body model. Brands like Taylor’s have risen out of the ranks to remove the stigma of differing body types and replace it with well-deserved self-adoration campaigns regardless of size or shape.

A word about her body-positive brand spread across the masses, and her fanbase grew exponentially. Today, Taylor Jay Atelier operates out of Oakland, California. From her words, she will “…continue to design beautiful clothing that lasts a lifetime and makes every woman feel and look amazing.”

We are incredibly proud purveyors of Taylor’s line at Queen Anna House of Fashion. Here are our favorite pieces you can shop online or in-store with us.

The “London Dress” from the Taylor Jay collection is a refined and contemporary design suited to the modern-day woman. The wrap-around maxi dress is elegantly assertive for workwear and quickly out on the town, adding next-level class to your relaxed vibe.

The Taylor Jay Collection “London” Jumpsuit is a versatile necessity for your closet. Complete with long, full pant legs, L waist-band, and three-quarter sleeves, this jumpsuit can be worn at the office or out in town.

The Taylor Jay Collection Black Midi Skirt is a closet essential. This skirt is made from a super-soft, stretchy French Terry fabric that hugs your curves in comfort and style. 

A modern and feminine, one size fits most, the Taylor Jay Collection convertible black wrap dress has just taken wrap dresses to the next level. The black stretch terry cotton material is soft to the touch and is convertible to be worn in several different ways. 

Taylor on the importance of National Black Business Month:

"At Taylor Jay, we take inclusivity very seriously; that’s one of our non-negotiables. Especially, being a Black-owned fashion business for women, this has been the central point of our work- making sure there’s a proper representation for every body type, every woman. And when we talk about inclusion, we mean it for every sector, most importantly in entrepreneurship. But lack of representation and biases from social construct has held us back, and we need to collectively work towards growing despite it, and abolishing this disparity."

"It was a challenge that led our founder Taylor Jay to start this business- when the mainstream fashion brands didn’t cater to her body type, she tailor-made one for herself and now we are proud to do it for you. And this has been possible only because of the unhinged support from our kind customers who recognize us for our quality of work and our values."

"This Black Business Month, let’s work together to educate each other, ask questions, discuss solutions and uplift the underrepresented."

We align ourselves with the Taylor Jay brand ethos that gone are the days when women were only one shape and one size, and those credentials were the lone “standard of beauty.” Queen Anna House of Fashion embraces the concept that beauty radiates from everyone, period, and we’re proud proponents of getting rid of the former ideals to make way for more than one “standard.”

For tips on how to style these pieces from the Taylor Jay Collection, read One Posh Closet's blog on Taylor Jay's Style Guide and check out the other Black-owned brands we feature at Queen Anna House of Fashion.