A style full of energy
In this special episode, we interview one of Richmond, VA’s top fashionistas, mental health specialist, and social figure Mecca Williams. Williams reflects on how she first became interested in fashion, how it’s led her to create style-focused projects like Style and Spirits RVA, and the personal items that mean the most to her today. Her most valued possession will surprise you.
STINAGENE (SG): Welcome to Retail Your Story, the podcast where we talk about the stories behind the objects that we welcome into our space. I’m your host, StinaGene. I am so excited because I’ve got a special person in the PodBoutique today. If you live in Richmond VA and or keep up with the happenings around the city you just might know or have seen this person’s radiant smile and warm, welcoming air around her. She is a soul you’d want to meet and if you haven’t already, I’m happy to introduce you to her. Everyone, meet Mecca Williams.
MECCA WILLIAMS (MW): This is weird because I have a hard time talking about myself. I’m a whole license therapist so it’s difficult for me to talk about myself. So when people say, who are you. How do I answer that? Hmm, well, my name is Mecca, I live in Richmond. I am a daughter, a friend, I am a big cousin, little cousin, I am a lover, I am spirits of light and radiance. I try to be most times. And I’m just pretty much overall a good person.
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**SG:** When I first got the idea for this podcast series, I knew I wanted to get her on the show. For one she is always shining a light on others
**MW:** I’m affiliated with two businesses in the city and they’re more like social engagement businesses. One is call Style and Spirits RVA. We’re on Facebook and Instagram. What we do is we highlight people’s personal style in the city. We saw there are stylish people in Richmond and every other city highlights their stylish people in some respects and we just that was a lane that was missing in the city so we kind of got in. So we do this thing called Tuesday Street Style RVA so every Tuesday we highlight someone whose stylish, we take their photos and we answer a litany of questions about their style and what they’re wearing. Then we’ll also pop up at certain events and take pictures of people who are stylish at the events because thats another thing that is missing is that we don’t have a lot of street style photographers here. I’m not a photographer, my partner Dom is not a photographer so we just do what we do.
**SG:** Mecca has her own unique style as she won Richmond Magazine’s award for Most Stylish Person in 2018. I definitely wanted to talk to her about Her – her style, how she came to be known for her style and where here fascination with clothing and self-expression came from. And boy, did she have a lot to say about it.
**MW:** Style how you dress, how you show up in the world, that’s an art. I would have to say Middle school is when I started to, really, like late elementary school when I started to understand I was in to clothes and shoes. It started with sneakers. And the community I was in if you had a cool pair of sneakers and what was popular, you were fresh, automatically. So I tell this story a lot, when I was in the fourth grade I was the only person in the school who had a pair of all red Filas. That’s why it’s funny to me they brought these Filas back. It’s hilarious. I walked in the school and everyone was just on me, like, “Oh, you got the Filas”. So then I started to, as a kid, think this is the way this is the avenue to get attention, everybody’s like on me now. So I started to become interested in it then. I also had influences around me like my mother, my father, they had two different styles, but they were very stylish people. My grandmother was heavily into shoes. So when I think about the influences in my community. Also hip hop music. I really paid attention to what people were wearing in music videos. So with the time, when I think about LL Cool J and others, they wore stuff I couldn’t afford, but I just like the aesthetics of all that stuff. Tribe Called Quest, when we fast forward to middle school. I just kind of was in whatever the trend was. I just kind of followed whatever the trend was when I was younger.
**SG:** Trends. What the magazines and celebrities think is cool, we think is cool. Especially when we’re young. Sometimes, they linger – years, decades. Other times, they’re gone within the blink of an eye.
Trends reflect the time in which they came from. Shoes, for example, are one of those things that are easy to date. Culturally, our obsession with shoes is fairly new. Back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, you probably had one pair of shoes that you wore for most of your life, and odds were good they were meant for practicality, not comfort. Things aren’t that much different now – pumps are rarely the thing you usually want to walk around the house in on a Saturday, and even some every-day shoes like Converse or Keds are usually kinda shapeless, heavy, can cause blisters. But does that seem to stop people from wearing them? Nope. The look is everything. Our shoes declare our brand loyalties, our social and economic status, and sometimes even where we come from, and who we will become in the future.
**MW:** College, whatever was going on in the 90s, I was wearing all that type of stuff too. And then becoming an adult, transitioning, that’s when I had to learn, oh, what is my style. Like when you get into the workforce. And then things got confusing and my style became trash. Because I didn’t know what to do. I’m trying to look like this, but this is not me. But I’m trying to like wear these standard work clothes. I’m shopping at JCPennys. Shout out to JCPenny, nothing wrong with JCPenny that was my place.
**SG:** Are they still open?
**MW:** Yeah, they still open.
**SG:** Okay, hit up JCPennys ya’ll.
**MW:** I’ll still pop into JCPennys every now again if I’m looking for something every now and again. But I’m grown, grown now so within the past ten year I’ve really hauled in. One of my friends said I started to notice your style evolve when we were in our thirties. I was like you’re right. Like when we become grown, grown I started to understand, my style evolved when I evolved. When I started to learn who I am and it just comes out in how I dress.
**SG:** For myself, Mecca, and probably many others, style is something we play with, experiment with. We get up every morning, look in the mirror, and ask, “who am I today? How will I show that to the world?” As we get older, more confident in our own skin and our own bodies, that comes less and less of an issue. Whoever said being a grown up can’t be fun? You may know the saying dogs and children can bring very different people together into a conversation.
**MW:** I have never heard that.
**SG:** So you’ve never heard that saying?
**MW:** No.
**SG:** So you know if you’re out and about at the dog park or playground, because you’re with your dogs or kids, people might come and give your child or dog a compliment and then a conversation gets going. Do you believe the same is true when it comes to style?
**MW:** Absolutely, I say all the time certain things that I wear is a conversation piece. I would be in certain places and it would be a conversation piece. Like especially when I’m out of town, it depends on what I’m wearing or how my hair is I attract people so I can start conversations will start with what I’m wearing then we’ll get into other things. So I meet people that way through my style. Or vice versa, what they’re wearing. I was in Philly recently, I stopped somebody in the street and asked if I could take their picture, their outfit was dope, and we chatted. Where’d you get that from? This that and the other. Where you live? Absolutely. It’s literally to me it’s like being in a museum. Like what do we do, we’re all in the same museum together observing the same art, we’re going to eventually have a conversation about what we think the art meant.
**SG:** A conversation, the possibility of friendship and connection over a few items of clothing or jewelry we place on our bodies as we walk out the door. Mecca reminds me yet again that personal fashion runs so much deeper than just looks. Thanks to her eye for the bold and her bold nature, she’s had many interesting encounters with total strangers because of what they were wearing or she was wearing.
For example, she told me of a run-in she had with local rapper and businessman, Chance Fisher while she was shooting for Style and Spirits RVA:
**MW:** Well, we were shooting turning for Style and Spirits RVA and we had a shoot with Chance Fisher. So he’s a local rapper, but he’s also the manager of Le Maire restaurant at the Jefferson. Anyways, we shot him for Style and Spirits last summer and we had the most interesting conversation. I did not know he was that knowledgeable about the fashion houses and the different magazines. He was telling his style story and I was fascinated. I was taken back. I wanted to get back with him. Actually he inspired another project I want to work on eventually, interviewing people.”
**SG:** Mecca’s mind never stops spinning. While she was talking to Chance about style, they weren’t just talking about major trends and magazines – they were talking about his childhood, his sources of inspiration as a kid, a teenager, a young person, how he became who he is today. This interview project, if she ever gets the chance to work on it, will be recorded on video for the world to see. There are stories, reasons behind what we buy and what we wear and how we wear it. Those stories make us who we are, and Mecca is the perfect person to bring them out into the open.
Mecca has accumulated some stories of her own as well. While sneakers have always been at the heart of her love for fashion and style, their significance holds a personal meaning for her as well.
**MW:** I was influenced by my mother and father so I was raised by my mom. My father was not in the household, but my father taught me how to clean my sneakers. He’s the one who taught me how to do that. That’s the only thing I was taught to care for, he taught me how to properly clean my sneakers. So I know how to clean my sneakers, They have all these different mechanisms now, but I know how to clean my sneakers the old school way. So, um,I was also influenced by my mother. My mother was a Muslim when I was growing up. So she wore a lot of headwraps and she had to wear all them Muslim women attire and garb and she would, because it can get boring wearing the same ole type of stuff, and so she would get her clothes made. The way she would wear a lot of ethnic prints and a lot of prints and the way she would put things together; she would wear sunshades. I remember vividly in the 80’s wearing big shades and she would have her, um, a kimar, she would have that on, but she would have a straw hat and something over it. I remember going to school and they would be like your mom can dress and I would be like, oh yeah, she can.
**SG:** Mecca’s dad taught her how to keep her shoes lookin’ clean and sharp, and her mother taught her how to bring some fun and excitement to what she wore. Like many of us, Mecca learned from her parents and the world around her, and she took pieces and parts of what she learned and saw and formed them into her own thing. Her sense of fashion goes across the spectrum – from men’s Ralph Lauren polos to fit-and-flair 1950’s style dresses to everything in between and beyond. The one consistency across her wardrobe, however, are sneakers. And maybe the prints. But we’ll get to that in a minute. First, the donation pile regrets:
**MW:** I had a lot of jackets I wish I had. A lot of the stuff they brought back I already had and I wished I still had them. I had this Nautica jacket, I think my mom got rid of it. It was reversible, fleece on the inside, it was super warm and I had it for years. I left it at her house and I don’t know why because I have a whole house. I don’t know why I didn’t take it with me. I have no idea why I didn’t bring that jacket with me. I had this purple Adidas jacket. It was like a down jacket. I got it from King of Prussia mall in Philly when I was a teenager. I loved that jacket. It had a hood. I wish I still had that. I had another Adidas jacket. A lot of sportswear stuff. It was red, white, and blue. It was like the soccer theme. I have pictures of that and I don’t know what happened to that, but wish I still had it. A lot of my jewelry. I used to wear a lot of gold. You know gold is worth a lot of money now. I don’t know where all that stuff went.
**SG:** As clothes and trends go in and out of style, there is one brand that Mecca seems to hold absolute loyalty towards. Can you guess what it is? She mentioned it twice already.
**MW:** My AirMax 95. I have the OG color wave and I purchased them in 2014. When they first came out in ‘95, I was in high school. They had two different color waves. They had the men’s version which is the kind I have now and they had the girls’ version which was purple, teal, white, and grey. I want the girl ones because back then shoes weren’t unisex. Now they are more unisex. They had like the kids size but things were different. So I wanted the girls’ version and I tried to get my boyfriend at the time to purchase them for me, but he didn’t. I was on my way off to college. Okay, fast forward. They came out with another pair. I brought a picture. They came out with another pair in ‘96. So I called my cousin up because he had a job and was like, hey, these shoes are about to come out can you let me borrow the money. So he let me borrow the money and I think they were too big too. I was so desperate. So I purchased those and I kept them for years and ended up giving them to my friend, she gave them to my sister, and they got passed down. I just love those shoes, so fast forward 2015 they came with them and I was like, Oh I have to have them.
**SG:** You know what they say, third time’s the charm. Her second item is her “defining style piece,” as she put it. If Mecca ever ends up with some display in a fashion museum some day (and she totally should), this would be the item they put behind glass at the very center, the thing that makes her Her. And of course, it’s an item belonging to her favorite brand.
**MW:** Okay, so this is an Adidas hoodie. I think it was their Farm Brazil collection. I’m not sure. I can’t remember. So it’s everything that I am. First of all I love print clashing. So this whole hoodie has all the prints and it clashes. Also the top part, embroidered, ethnic design reminds me of like Mexico or something. Something Spanish. I’m not sure what the inspiration was. But if it was a Farm Brazil that makes sense. I love the fact it’s embroidered. I love the colors. I love red, I love pink. I love blue. I love like neon. I mean everything. This was genius when I saw it and was like I have to have it. I saw it originally on Adidas web site, but I just refused to pay the amount. I caught it on sale at ASOS. That’s another thing about me, if I want something bad enough, I will stalk the item, but I also have to be careful because I have to make sure it doesn’t sale out. So anyways, I like the flowers, I like the leopard print, I love leaopard print. Leapord and camel is is like black to me. It’s like your neutrals. They go with everything. So the fact they had the audacity just to throw on a leopard hood. Like who does that and it’s comfortable and its warm. This hoodie is.. I’m never getting rid of this hoodie. I will wear it every single season and everywhere. It’s briliiant. They did a a good job with this. Adidas is really leading the charge as far as athleisure wear.
**SG:** Regardless of how old she was or where she was in life, Adidas is Mecca’s go-to brand. It’s home for her, and the kinds of clothes and shoes they provide fit perfectly in her diverse wardrobe. From Athleisure wear to high-end pieces designed with the help of major fashion designers, the brand is on point. At one point while we were talking, she referred to their clothing line as “street design,” which I think fits her sense of style and everything she stands for perfectly. The Retail Your Story podcast is all about telling the stories of the items that make us us, not just what we wear on our bodies but also what we come home to at the end of each day that makes the space home. I loved her answer when I asked what that item was for her. She knew the answer right away, didn’t even really have to think about it:
**MW:** My couch. Everybody who knows me knows I don’t care about anything else in that house, but my couch. You did not expect me to say that couch? My couch is cool. I have a cool couch. So I always joke about when I move, I just sale all this shit and just leave and then I’m like, but this couch. I’m going to miss my couch. So my couch is cool. It’s like a circular sectional and it’s like I have family members that no longer are living sit on that couch. I’ve had cool conversations. I’ve had people cry, I’ve cried. Like I’ve had moment on that couch and the way it’s design. It’s like literally a circle and it represents great energy. Like anybody who comes and sits on that couch for a long period either fall asleep, tell their life story, something is going to happen on that couch. That couch is magical.
**SG:** Oh yeah, and the couch is burnt orange. Revitalized shoes, a print-clashing Adidas hoodie, and a couch. Three things that seem so simple hold so much meaning in Mecca’s life. These items are cherished not just for their looks, but for their memories, for how they represent who Mecca is and who she’s been through the different stages of her life thus far. Right now, these items mean the world to her. But in ten years? Twenty years? It will probably be a different three items she chooses. After all, as we grow and change, so does the stuff we accumulate.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Retail Your Story.. You can find the items Mecca described on our website at retailyourstorypodcast.com or our Instagram page @retailyourstory, and you can follow the Style and Spirits Instagram page @styleandspiritsRVA . I really hope you enjoyed listening to Mecca share some of her retail story. When wrapping up our interview I asked her how she wanted to be thought of. Take a listen to what she said.
**MW:** That’s all I wanna be, cool,sexy, and on vacation.
**SG:** Y’all I LOVE THAT. And she is definitely it representing all of it. What are your stories? What items mean the most to you, or can be used to describe who you are and where you’re at right now in life? We want to hear them. Leave us a voice message on our website, send an email and if the story fits we’ll share it on the air. This was Retail Yours Story. Until next time!
