It's never too early (or too late) to step into your purpose
Meet Celai West, the runway model, activist, and entrepreneur who took New York Fashion Week by storm at the age of 10
TL;DR
Shayna’s last press trip to Oakland was EVERYTHING 👑
Quick intro for Celai
✨Meet Celai West✨
📣Shout Out to all PR People
🍃Paid Subscribers: Inside look into Oakland’s Cannabis Trail
Shayna’s last press trip to Oakland was EVERYTHING 👑
Need I say more?
I flew back to Mexico this past Monday and I’m still recovering from aggressively eating my way across the city of Oakland, California (also known as “The Town”). I, like many people, had preconceived notions about Oakland mostly stemming from what I heard on the news and in movies. Visit Oakland is a PR company that’s trying to change the press and global conceptions about Oakland, one visit at a time. When I tell you that I’ve fallen in LOVE with Oakland! Listen. I don’t say this lightly but this might be the only US city that could actually get me to consider moving back to the States full time. It’s particularly expensive to live there, especially as of the last 10 years, but if you have a chance to visit Oakland (see what I did there?) I strongly recommend it. If you’re Black, so much of our contemporary history within the United States has roots in Oakland, so this goes doubly for us. I’ll be talking more about my visit in tomorrow’s newsletter :)
I also wrote a piece for Oaklandside about the Black Joy Parade that came out last week Friday!
Quick intro for Celai
Celai and I connected on TikTok a few months ago, but I’ve known of her for a few years now. Millions of us have seen at least one of her viral runway walks at some point in time. Nowadays, she is still modeling but she’s also venturing into entrepreneurship in her teenage years.
Today is the first day of Women’s History Month and I wanted Celai’s story to be the first of the month because we need to be preparing and uplifting our young women now. With every generation, we need to be sharing our wisdom, history, and love to create a more beautiful and optimistic future. To me, that future is filled with more young women like Celai encouraging her peers and younger individuals to dream bigger, be more confident, and love themselves a little hard with each day.
✨Meet Celai West✨
Before we dive into your many different businesses, I think it's important for the people who don't know you to have a little intro. You were thrust into the limelight at a pretty early age. Can you talk a little more about what that was like?
Well I started modeling when I was 3. My family was at a skating rink and this guy came up to us and said, "I wanna shoot her". We were really confused at first but then he said he's a photographer (whew!). So I did the shoot and I said to myself, "I wanna do this until I die!" but I was 3, and couldn't really communicate that to my parents. When I was 4, I got my first modeling contract but my mom wasn't really sure if I actually wanted to model or not so she never signed it. When I was 5, I got my next modeling contract and I was finally able to tell her I loved modeling so she signed the contract.
Then at 7, I did a local fashion show and that's when runway started to take off for me. At 8 I got invited to walk in New York Fashion Week and at 9, I had my very first viral runway video. When I was 10, I became the youngest professional runway model to walk amongst an all-adult lineup in NYFW when I closed the opening show.
Was runway your introduction into the fashion world, or did your interest start before that?
Modeling was definitely my first love and I just knew at 3 years old that this is something I wanted to do forever.
Not just anyone has THE Naomi Campbell and Miss J Alexander in their comments, complimenting their runway walk (big congrats!), but the fashion industry isn't for the faint of heart either. Do you have any advice for parents trying to get their kids into the industry?
Yes, I've been pretty vocal about the challenges I've experienced in the industry but my best advice is to make sure your kid really wants to do it and not something the parent wants the kid to do. And if it ever stops being fun, just take a break for a bit. Oh, and make sure you do good in school, too.
Now that we've talked about your background, it's about time that we tell the people what it is that you do (outside of runway and modeling). Can you share more about your businesses?
Sure! So I started The Chatty Chick, my tee line, back when I was 7. I would get lots of messages from parents who said their daughter hated their natural hair but after looking at some of my images, they are starting to love it, and I wanted to make tees that would help empower them to love their natural hair. I did the, "I'd be jealous of my hair too," tee and I saw people of all ethnicities, genders and ages wearing it so I decided to offer tees for the entire family, not just hair tees.
Then when I was almost 13, I started writing my first self-authored book (I co-authored 2 ebooks at 10) and I released it when I was 14. It's about the challenges I faced in the industry, but how I kept going and persevered.
In a class I was taking, I learned that 7 out of 10 girls have low self esteem, and I really wanted to change that so I came up with my Slay Kits, my confidence boosting subscription boxes.
I also started to do more public speaking events to motivate and encourage girls so when I decided to launch Celai Academy for my runway classes, I wanted to include a confidence series that included courses, free resources as well as a safe community to discuss challenges they are facing.
Is there a business that you have that you're most excited for people to know about? If so, which one and why
I am definitely excited about Celai Academy because not only do I get to teach classes and build a community but I'm also teaming up with my mom who plans to offer her own workshops for parents.
There's a large number of HTA readers who are parents. Can you share more about your Parent Workshops and your Confidence Building Courses?
My Confidence series is for kids, tweens, and teens who want to learn how to identify when they are having self-doubt and how to send in reinforcements, how to effectively set goals, how to safely use and navigate social media, tools for handling rejection and how to improve a negative body image. The course includes worksheets, charts, quizzes and a completion certificate.
The parenting workshops will be live and interactive with topics ranging from how to get your kid into kids runway and how to keep them safe in the industry.
What would you say is your biggest accomplishment thus far? Like, what have you done that you are the most proud of?
Hmm, that's a hard one but I would say it's how I've used my voice to speak up for others to create change. Before I became a Texture Activist, I was actually really scared to speak up (plus mom explained that if I do, I'll stop getting booked) but after I spoke out, there were SO MANY other people who were going through the same thing and I felt proud that I was able to be their voice and help create change even if it did mean that I'd lose work (I did).
And I know this wasn't part of the question but the thing that makes my mom most proud of me is when I took a stand against the industry when they wanted me to change my hair. I refused to conform to what they wanted just to get picked. Instead, I chose to build my own brand and book myself.
Where can we find you (website, socials, etc)? And how would you prefer people reach out to you to learn more?
My main website is www.CelaiWest.com and has all the links to my socials (IG, FB, TW, TT, YT etc), www.thechattychick.com is all of my merchandise and www.celaiacademy.com has all my courses and iCelai community. If you want to reach out to me, follow me on my socials and email me at info@celaiwest.com
📣 Shout Out to all PR People
If you happen to be a person who works in food, beverage, and/or travel PR, definitely send me an email! I’d love to connect with you to see how we can partner in future editorial pieces :) If you have any questions, please include them in the comment section.
🍃Paid Subscribers: Inside look into Oakland’s Cannabis Trail
Tomorrow I’ll give you guys some info about the Oakland Cannabis Trail! I went to 3 very different businesses along the trail, made some friends, and will DEFINITELY be pitching their stories to multiple publications in the near future. If you want to be in the know, read tomorrow’s newsletter.
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