HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — To understand the pride that comes with walking through Accent Styles Boutique with owner Anji Degante, you have to understand their humble beginnings.
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“I literally started with earrings,” she said, “then it turned into pen and pad where I was literally recording things I’d like to wear and never knew my designs would jump off the page and come to life.”
In the last four years, it has grown from earrings and a small shop to an upgraded space filled with East African fashion.
Degante says her love for all things East African, and more specifically Kenya, began with a vacation she took years ago.
“I was supposed to be there for a two-week vacation and I decided to stay and extend for three years,” he said. “While there, I fell in love with the fabrics, the clothing and the language and decided that I wanted to build a bridge, I wanted to give people a piece of home.”
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And it’s a bridge that works both ways.
Degante tells ABC Action News that her boutique allows her to educate the community about the beauty of East African culture.
But it also allows him to employ East Africans who help make the designs and helps finance an orphanage there.
“That [money] provides their hygiene, provides their educational needs, provides their daily needs like food,” he said.
Her work, she says, is fueled by passion and her father’s words of wisdom.
“My father has always told me, ‘you have to leave a place more beautiful than [when] you arrived,'” Degante said.
Source: news.google.com