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My daughter is seven. She watches everything I do. She watches how I do my hair in the morning, which products I reach for, whether I look happy or frustrated in the mirror. She watches which pictures I hang on the walls. She watches which women I admire out loud. And she watches what I carry when I leave the house. Last month she asked me: "Mama, why does your purse say Kate Spade? Who is Kate Spade?" I explained it was a brand. A designer. A name. A woman who designed bags, but not for us specifically — for everybody, which is another way of saying for nobody in particular. "But whose name is on YOUR stuff?" she asked. And I didn't have a good answer. Because the honest answer is: someone else's name. Always someone else's name. I've been thinking about that question ever since. Because my daughter is at the age where she is forming her understanding of what Black women look like in the world. What they wear. What they carry. What names are on their things. What kind of beauty is worth investing in. And I've spent years — years — carrying bags that center someone else's name. Someone else's story. Someone else's vision of what a stylish, quality-conscious woman looks like. Not once, in my whole adult life of buying bags, had I carried something that looked like me. That depicted a woman with my hair, my heritage, my particular brand of Black womanhood. I kept telling myself it didn't matter. It's just a bag. But my daughter is watching. "What I want to leave my children isn't just financial security, it's a sense of meaning." I read that quote somewhere and it wrecked me a little, because that's exactly it. That's the thing underneath all the decisions I've been making — or not making. The things I buy, the images I choose to carry, the stories I tell about myself without words. My daughter is absorbing all of it. I didn't realize how much I'd been teaching her to carry other people's stories until I found the Aina Coconut White Leather Handbag from Afroyla. Bold pop-art illustration of a Black woman — natural hair, full afro, wearing a crown. The words RISE & SLAY in confident print against coconut white Veganique leather. A Black-owned brand. Made with intention. I looked at it and thought: this is what I want my daughter to see me carry. Not because it's a statement or a political act or anything heavy. Just because — if she's going to watch me leave the house every day for the next decade, I want what she sees to tell a true story. A story about a woman who knows who she is and carries that knowledge with her. A woman with natural hair who wears a crown. A woman who rises. Who slays. I ordered it. The quality is genuinely excellent — the Veganique leather is buttery-soft, holds its shape beautifully, and the artwork is bold and sharp in person. 13.8 inches, fits my laptop and everything else. Ships from the US warehouse within days. When it arrived, my daughter saw it before I'd even properly unboxed it. She got very quiet, which is unusual for her. Then she said: "Mama. She has hair like you." She said it so simply. Like it was obvious. Like it was just a fact she was noting, the way she notes that the sky is blue and the dog is brown. Matter of fact. Certain. I had to look away for a second. 🥹 "She looks like me," one reviewer wrote. "The lady on the bag looks like me with a crown." That's Ashley. That's every woman who has picked this up and seen herself in it — because most of us have spent our whole lives carrying things that didn't see us at all. "God bless you Afroyla — bye to the other really expensive bags." That's Karen from Massachusetts, who has been carrying it everywhere since Juneteenth. To funerals, to car dealerships, to church, to work training. Says she carries them "with pride everywhere." That's the word. Pride. My daughter is seven. She is forming her understanding of what Black women look like in the world. I want her to see her mother walk out the door every day carrying something that says: we are regal. We rise. We slay. Not as a lesson. Not as an assignment. Just as the truth, worn daily, carried without apology. Afroyla has buy one get one free right now — I got the bag and the matching wallet, so the whole set is the Aina. Same crowned woman, same coconut white, same RISE & SLAY. Every time I open my bag, she's there. My daughter has already asked if she can have one when she's bigger. Yeah, baby. You can. I got mine at https://afroyla.com/products/aina-coconut-white-leather-handbag ---