Nashona style
By John Joyce
Published in News on February 17, 2016 1:46 PM
News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Lilian Danieli talks about how she selects fabrics for her clothing line, Nashona, at The Village Rising in downtown Goldsboro Tuesday as she prepares for her trunk show this weekend. Danieli travels to Tanzania to hand pick the brightly colored textiles for her designs, keeping in mind even the most timid dresser who might be intimidated by bold prints.
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Ms. Danieli holds up what she believes is the brightest skirt in her collection. Even with a bold pattern and vibrant colors she believes that there is something in her collection for everyone.
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Ms. Danieli talks about the inspiration behind her clothing line, Nashona, at The Village Rising Tuesday as she prepares for her trunk show that starts this Friday.
There is no toning down Nashona.
The same can be said for the clothing line's creator, Lilian Danieli.
The brand and its creator come from Tanzania, and both are unapologetic in their colorful, flashy and loud fashion.
"As we all know, Africans, we wear flashy and colorful stuff. You don't really see something that is settled. It is all loud," Mrs. Danieli said. "We are loud. And that shows our strength, probably," she said.
The second annual Nashona Trunk Show opens Friday at The Village Rising in downtown Goldsboro. Entrepreneur Kalilah Mischeaux will host the weekend-long fashion experience, essentially giving over her store to Nashona.
The event, along with fashions dripping in African culture and style, will feature authentic Tanzanian music and food.
"Everything is made in Tanzania," Mrs. Danieli said. "And I have a few pieces where people come in and maybe they like this print, but they don't like this style, and we make pieces for them here in Goldsboro. But the majority of the pieces are all made in Tanzania."
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Mrs. Danieli emigrated to the U.S. from Tanzania in 1995. She first came over with a youth group as a camp counselor for a visit to Virginia.
She then moved to the U.S., living first in Virginia then in New York. Her husband, Dr. Sembua Danieli, came four years later.
"Actually, we met one week before I left for the U.S.," she said. Her future husband would visit for weeks at a time during the summer months and would usually fly to New York over Christmas to spend the holidays with her.
"He was studying in Europe at the time," she said.
In 1999, he proposed. Mrs. Danieli accepted, and the couple were married soon after. Already a doctor overseas, Dr. Danieli had to repeat his residency once he moved to the U.S. The couple lived in Chicago while he gained certification there, then spent time in New York before settling in Richmond, Va.
After four years in Chicago and another four years in Richmond, the Danielis made their way to Goldsboro.
Dr. Danieli, a hospitalist, was offered a position at Wayne Memorial Hospital.
Goldsboro took some getting used to, Mrs. Danieli said.
"Goldsboro was shocking to me," she said. "Because of the culture and just because, I felt like I stood out."
Everywhere she went people would ask what brought her here and where she was from. She said she stood out both because of her accent and her appearance.
"I took some classes at Wayne Community College, and sometimes I would dress like this (in African prints) and people would notice that. Goldsboro was rough for me," she said.
Finding a church and taking classes at the college eased her transition, she said. But the Danielis also have three children -- two teenage girls and an 8-year-old son -- who had to assimilate. Their transition was much easier, she said.
Because of their parents, the Danieli children, too, have a bit of a different dialect than the students they met in Goldsboro. But they soon made friends and were able to cope.
"You know kids are always kids. They went to school, and they adjusted just fine," she said.
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Nashona debuted in 2012, following a mission trip Mrs. Danieli made to her native Tanzania. She went with a group from her local church, the Goldsboro Worship Center.
"Nashona means 'to sew,'" she said. "It is a Swahili word that means 'to sew.'"
Mrs. Danieli has made several trips to her homeland since coming to the U.S., but the mission trip with her church opened her eyes to a need she had not previously been aware of.
"When I got to Tanzania that year, and I've been going to Tanzania prior to that all the time, but this particular trip was really different because I saw the need of the people there -- the women, the children," she said.
The mission brought Mrs. Danieli to an orphanage that was home to 65 children.
"We visited this orphanage, there were 65 kids there and, of course, you know, they went to school. But the education was not the best," she said. "So I wanted to do something for those kids education-wise."
But there was the cost to consider.
"That is when Nashona was born," she said.
While still in Tanzania, Mrs. Danieli sat with her cousin and told her how she felt about the children she had seen. She told her she wanted to help, but that she did not know how.
"I started telling her how I'd been feeling. And she was like, 'Well, you like to dress up. Why don't you just start selling clothes?'" Mrs. Danieli said.
"I hesitated because I was like, 'Where, in Goldsboro?'"
Although it would have humble beginnings -- a small import clothing line in a small town -- Nashona would soon grow beyond Mrs. Danieli's vision to help orphans in Africa.
"It was successful, in a way. And in 2013, I sponsored the first child."
She spent $1,864 sending a single child from the orphanage to a boarding school.
She said sponsoring the student alleviated some of the pressure from of the woman running the orphanage -- taking the cost of one of the 65 children housed there off of her hands -- and it benefited the child.
"That is the whole year. That is the school fees, clothing, food and other expenses," she said.
In the time since, Mrs. Danieli has sponsored a second student, and this year she is hoping to sponsor two more.
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This year's trunk show will be different from last year, as the brand has grown to include a larger audience.
"We have a lot more styles. And we adjusted our sizes. The sizes were not friendly to everyone," Mrs. Danieli said.
"Our sizes were very small when we started, and we realized we needed to add to that. So now, most women can wear Nashona."
Although the exotic fashions were not immediately well received in Goldsboro -- they met with more success in New York, Chicago and in Los Angeles, as well as in other countries, such as Portugal -- that, too, has changed.
"Too bright," Mrs. Danieli said. It was one of many negative responses she received when the line first debuted.
"You know, too bright for them. And people were just not comfortable wearing flashy colors like that," she said. "That was the main problem."
But in 2015, something changed.
"Last year was the year that everything just went loose -- everywhere. You would go online, you would go on Instagram -- everybody was into African prints," she said.
"I think last year was the year that something went right. And actually, we did very well last year. Last year was my best year."