Our Founder

{Our Founder & CEO}

LaShawn Kenley is a creative spirit and advocate for women of color, self love, diversity and fashion. Born and raised in Laurel/Upper Marlboro area she learned early that entrepreneurship would be a lifestyle she would eventually seek. Having a father who was a retired police officer turned personal trainer and mother who loved interior design and knitting she grew to develop her own path in seeking a creative outlet. This started within dance and music and soon grew into the love for textiles, fabrics and design. Throughout college she excelled in a budding commercial modeling career where she experienced success working for Sephora, Smashbox, AT&T (ad campaigns), VH1 (fashion shows), The Today's Show (fashion segments), and a variety of beauty campaigns.  She dove deeper into the fundamentals of design and fell in love with the entire process which would start her journey to what we see now. She paired her hands-on experience such as being on movie and production sets as model with her Business Management degree from The University of Maryland College Park and began creating her way to building a unique lifestyle/fashion brand.

As her appreciation for the world of fashion deepened and her travel experience expanded she grew to become a conscious consumer. Caring more for where clothes were made and how they were created, she saw a void in diversity and ethical production. She wanted her clothes to speak to her culture/black culture without compromising quality. She also wanted to combine her love of the bohemian flowy aesthetic with African prints as well as infuse culture into minimalist pieces. After recognizing a lack of representation of black and brown women  in the Bohemian lifestyle, she decided to create her own women's apparel line to highlight these women in her community. After years of traveling around the world visiting Belize, Peru, Panama, The Bahamas, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Morocco, Europe and Canada she naturally was influenced by various local styles. She ultimately fused flowy/comfortable fabrics with the unique prints of black/African culture while adding on her own point of view to create our infamous coined term... Bohemian~Afro~Chic. This was a new love affair that was soon birthed to where she properly named her... Sun Gods.