Reality competition shows are a platform for innovators—especially ones of color—to get access to curated opportunities, onscreen marketing of their brands and substantial financing that can be hard to come by otherwise. Dress My Tour, the new bingeable design competition series that just dropped on Hulu, has us stoked because several Black competitors compete to create stunning outfits for its music artist guests. Even more dope? EBONY exclusively speaks with the Black designer who won the series.
Spoiler Alert: EBONY reveals the first Dress My Tour winner below.
KDaniels, whose first name is Keiandrea, created winning outfits for Toni Braxton, JoJo Siwa and Jessie James Decker on the ten-challenge competition series. She was the last designer standing and took home Dress My Tour’s $100,000 prize. She also won a spot at Harlem’s Fashion Row’s 2024 HFR Designer Retreat. Pretty impressive for the 29-year-old wearable art creator from Dallas, Texas, who wanted to quit the industry.
“I’ve quit multiple times. But I feel like every time I have tried or wanted to quit, God always circles me back around,” she candidly tells EBONY.
“The last time that I quit, in 2017, my uncle randomly came over to the house, and I was talking to him about it. He basically felt like I needed to keep going and gave me a couple of scriptures that day to meditate on. From then on, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m not gonna quit anymore. I’m just going to keep going. And what happens, happens.’”
While reality TV can often paint Black women in a negative light, Daniels knew she had a higher power to answer to. “I went into it with two thoughts: I’m just going to be who I am authentically. Secondly, I knew at the end of the day that God brought me there, and I didn’t want to embarrass him. I really wanted to control my emotions. As for the rest, I don’t like drama and being in mess.”
Those promises make it easy for viewers to root for Daniels while watching the series and cheer her to ultimate victory. “I didn’t even go down there with the idea to win. I just went down there to do my best,” she says humbly. “The fact that everything paid off is just amazing. It’s a testament to what happens when you have faith and when you put your best foot forward and do your best.”
Daniels always knew she was destined for the fashion industry. “I originally thought I would be a stylist,” she shares. A high school mentor taught her how to sew, allowing her to translate the designs in her head into garments. “I went to a magnet school that had a fashion program…I just started spending time with my mentor after school, learning the basics. I took that and ran with it from there.”
Daniels studied business management and merchandising in college but states, “Nothing prepares you like experience.” She taps her brand KDaniels Designs as the “Home of the Wow” moment. “I like to do one of ones. I like to push the envelope with my clients. That’s my passion.” Describing her style as bold and avant-garde, she adds, “I like volume, print and color—you know, out there.”
While she started making trendy ready-to-wear pieces, she knew it wasn’t her true voice. “I was focusing on the wrong market. I was supposed to be dressing people for red carpets, music videos and tours. If I had just focused on that, I would’ve reached my goal quicker. The moment that I decided in 2020 to just do what I make, that’s when everything started excelling without me thinking about it.” Her advice for fellow aspiring designers is “to find your lane and your road.”
With a vision to market her brand in limited editions, Daniels exclaims, “It would be an exclusive drop. Once it’s gone, it’s gone, and then you have to wait for the next one.”
She’ll be able to use her Dress My Tour winnings to make that a reality. She also knows whatever comes next, she’ll always have this bragging right: “KDaniels is the first [Dress My Tour] winner, and she is Black, young and herself. I didn’t have to fight nobody or nothing. I just had to be me, and it worked out.”
Watch the entire first season of Dress My Tour, now streaming on Hulu.