Style Star: Andru Mahiga
BY: Kinya Harte
With a popular blog, three jobs and a developing t-shirt line, EXUDE’s first Style Star, Andru Mahiga, is hard at work with no intentions of slowing down.
In 2004 Andru Mahiga, 24, had an itch to leave his home country of Tanzania, to attend college in the big apple with one goal in mind—aim to be different. Growing up along the coast of Tanzania in a city called Dar es Salaam, Mahiga remembers it to be much of a party city. “I wouldn’t have accomplished as much there as I would have here [NYC],” Mahiga said. “The only way to get noticed is to spend money, party, go to expensive restaurants—just ball. Everyone has to be the same in Tanzania, not comfortable in their own skin.”
Mahiga started right away towards his goal by chance. While shopping on Karmaloop’s (a Boston, Ma.-based boutique) online store, he stumbled upon a link to become a team representative. He started a Facebook group for his repcode, where he messages all members, alerting them of new arrivals. He had even gone so far to make a trip to Boston to to Karmaloop’s flagship store, to participate in photo shoots for the site. Although his Facebook group was a success, he started to expand his scope of marketing (he's pursuing a master's degree in marketing) by starting a blog, Dru York, to promote Karmaloop. Noticing the amount of traffic to his blog, he started add other posts and videos daily in addition to alerts on new Karmaloop arrivals, which made his amount of followers double in size. “People in Brazil are checking out Druyork.com,” said Mahiga. “Who would’ve known?”
After graduating in 2008, he knew because of the economy, getting a job would be close to impossible, so, he started looking into internships to build experience. He landed an internship at Complex Magazine in the fashion department, but of course, not without a few hurdles, “I applied online four months before graduating and I felt defeated when I never got a call,” said Mahiga. “I visited their office and demanded the number to someone in the fashion department.” He credits his time as a team rep. for Karmaloop for his job at the magazine; for, “they would’ve passed me by,” he said. With his same guerrilla tactics, Mahiga landed an internship concurrently with clothing line 10 Deep, aiding in their brand re-launch, and marketing heavy using social media platforms.
Although Mahiga loves style and fashion, favoring lines like 10 Deep, KR3W, RVCA and ORISUE, he tries the see the bigger picture. “I just want to be different. I want to be some type of influence on people and it starts with the way you look. But I could never give style advice.”
Via Exude
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment