Dyandra Raye

I'm the Founder & Designer of Jo-Anne Vernay, a line of luxury vegan footwear made from fruit and in Italy. We released our premiere design made from pineapples, The Mel Heel, in November 2020 with support from brands like Samsung, Elle, Harlem's Fashion Row, and more. I oversee and manage daily business operations including design, sourcing, production, logistics, sales, fulfillment, and administrative tasks We now operate with a small and talented team to spread the word about conscious consumerism through our innovative products.

I freelance as a consultant in Project Management for Jane + Mercer. Using my experience in Blogging & E-Retail, I manage a team of Website Developers and Expert Contractors to build Shopify E-Retail stores; including full-service website development and set up, monthly maintenance on the host and third-party applications, merchandising and inventory, update installation, Ad account set up, and other E-Commerce related website logistics. I code the site when needed for functions like spacing, font, weights, size, and minor layout changes. I also perform Facebook DNS Integration and Google Tags Manager, implementing these into DNS servers and code.

I managed the daily business of a direct-to-consumer cashmere pop up shop and online retailer, that brings contemporary cashmere to customers at affordable prices. At any given time, our team managed the selling season of 20+ pop-up shops nationwide. This opportunity allowed me to merge my skills in assisting with a variety of aspects including social media marketing, website design & functionality, budgeting & payroll, external brand partnerships and the daily tasks associated with the home office. I grew my role into spearheading their creative efforts as the e-commerce Manager, using diversity and innovation to create a cohesive digital brand image for our online website and growing the store revenue by 50%. I managed online merchandising, story telling, and growth strategies with expert Shopify developers and our team.

I created a self-titled blog to share fashion, travel and lifestyle articles on www.dyandraraye.com. Through blogging I began using my skill sets to collaborate with international brands that are both sustainable and or vegan such as Samsung, Deva Curl, The Lip Bar, and DIFF Eyewear, creating digital content for marketing and social media campaigns. Coveted publications such as Fashion Bomb Daily and Essence have featured my sense of style and creative content and I was listed as Top 100 Black Fashion Bloggers.

I Styled Photoshoots, Video shoots, Commercials and Private Clientele under my LLC. These projects included Philip George’s “Wish You Were Mine” Video which reached 122 million views on you tube, YANCY’S Electric Revival and Melanin Printed Books, American Authors “Go Big or Go Home” Video. I regularly assisted the lead stylist and costume department on projects such as Magic Mike XXL Ad featuring Jada Pinkett Smith, and Gotham on Fox.

I was responsible for managing and attaining vendor accounts for a Women's Contemporary line. I presented and sold the line to buyers, coordinated all aspects of purchase orders, created and analyzed reports and provided support to store sales representatives. This experience enhanced my selling, reporting, and negotiating abilities.

I managed a department of Men's Contemporary Sportswear vendors, running each business as a separate entity an acting as a liaison between the buyer and vendors. I tracked and managed receipts, analyzed reports and reacted to business trends, projected and planned fiscal seasons, helped to assort the buy and manage all aspects of the purchase order, worked with advertising on editions of The Book and coordinating all samples.

I worked at and opened a top tier fast fashion store as a stylist. I was responsible for styling and creating looks for all the interior and exterior mannequins as well a visual merchandising duties. This position was the ideal mixture between corporate and creative freedom. In addition we measured daily sales growth based upon visual displays through out the store.