Our Story: Why I Started Jaiyah

I started dancing when I was three years old. Dance became more than something I did, it became a huge part of who I am. I eventually went on to earn my BFA in Dance from George Mason University and began my career as a professional dancer.

But throughout all those years of training, performing, and eventually working professionally, there was one experience that followed me: "nude" rarely meant my nude.

Whether that was pancaking my shoes for a recital or just accepting that the shade on my feet was never going to be mine, you learned early to work with what existed.

By my senior year of college, costumers were custom-dyeing pieces to match my skin, and that care carried into my professional work. Freelance jobs were different. With no costume department, there often wasn't another option, so I made do with what I had.

One experience in particular has stayed with me. During a costume fitting, our costumer brought in two available shades of "nude" shorts. One worked for the lighter-complexioned dancers. The other was a deep chocolate brown. Neither matched my complexion or the complexion of the other brown-skinned dancer in the company.

I remember our costumer sincerely apologizing. She had searched, but those were the options available to her at the time.

And I remember thinking: This isn't her fault. But who will change it?

Then I had an entirely different experience.

For another project, a choreographer went out of her way to find shorts that matched each dancer's individual skin tone. When I looked at myself in the mirror wearing something that actually blended with my skin, I became emotional.

I felt included in something I had been passionate about nearly my entire life. Something as simple as dancewear made me feel recognized. As though someone had considered that dancers who looked like me existed too.

I mentioned how much that moment meant to me, and another dancer, who was white, said something that changed my perspective:

"You know, I don't have mine either."

She was right.

The problem was bigger than my own experience. Dancers across the spectrum were being asked to fit themselves into a limited definition of what "nude" was supposed to look like.

Around this same time, I would come home and talk to my then-boyfriend, now husband, about these frustrations. One day, after hearing me complain about it yet again, he simply said, "Why don't you do something about it?"

And I thought: You know what? I will.

That became Jaiyah.

We launched with skin-tone ballet shoes in six shades, not because six shades could ever represent every complexion, but because dancers deserved more than one default. More choices. More opportunities to find something that feels like it was made with them in mind.

Jaiyah is my way of helping create the dance world I wish I had grown up in. One where dancers don't have to spend decades making do, altering themselves, or wondering whether they were considered.

Because every dancer deserves the chance to look in the mirror and feel seen.

Find your shade: Shop the six shades | Not sure which is yours? Read the shade guide