The high school girls attending Disney Dreamers Academy were in for a treat Saturday morning as they sat in for an engaging, interactive fashion lesson from Brandi and Karli Harvey. The 30 year old twin daughters of comedian and media host, Steve Harvey, these two women have managed to carve out a lane for themselves encouraging and inspiring young girls. Whether it’s through their now defunct program, Young Fit and Fly or in presentations like the one yesterday, these dynamic women know how use realness to relate to their audience. MadameNoire sat down with these two after their presentation. See what they had to say about the role fashion plays in reaching your dreams, fashion faux pas and how they learned to love themselves after being teased in high school.
You guys have it together, fashion-wise now, but what was the biggest fashion mistake you made in the past 10-15 years?
Karli: 15 years ago, I was 15 and I dressed like a boy at 15. I used wore Nautica, Polo, Tommy and I wore Timbs…
Brandi: Everyday.
Karli: I wore a size 34/34 in mens. That’s how baggy my pants were and I was a small high schooler. Everything was huge. I was into the Hip Hop phase.
What about you?
Brandi: Yes. We dressed alike until we were 15.
So what happened? What changed?
Brandi: You know what, I think what happened with us was that we just got our own style. We started to just become our own person. Karli cut her hair at 16 and then I started to wear the long, micro braids. So that became my signature, even through college. And that became Karli’s signature the short hair. And we started to just find our own way.
Karli: Now, we had style when we were little, when our mom dressed us we had style. Because she could dress us like nobody’s business. We were always impeccably dressed as kids.
Brandi: And especially going to church.
Karli: But when we got to be teenagers and had free reign, oh we looked a hot mess.
Brandi: So probably the tomboy phase, the baggy clothes was probably the worst because it was just big. But some girls probably need to go back to that and wear big clothes because half of their clothes are too tight.
So would you say that’s the biggest mistake you’ve see young girls make?
Brandi: Yeah. Too tight. Clothes that are too small…
Karli: Too small and just inappropriate. I think a lot of girls, because of the media and what they see, they believe that sex sells. And to them, sometimes even with women, they think that if I don’t have on clothes and I show a lot of clothes, then I’m Hot. But what makes you Hot is what comes from the inside. It is a confidence, you exude confidence. And I’m telling you, if a man can dream about what he can have with you. If he is not seeing everything up front, there’s going to be that mystery there. He wants to see. He wants to get to know because he’s like ‘Man, she looks so good and she has on all her clothes.” I went through, in college, I wore short dresses. I did the body dress, really short because ‘Oh we going to the club.’ But I’ve learned over the years, I’m so comfortable with who I am, I don’t need–I have bits of sex appeal. Like my pants are fitted but I have on a blousy top, a fitted jacket. We like fitted dresses but it’s just having a balance.
