Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade’s daughter, Kaavia James Union-Wade, has partnered with her parents to launch her own clothing line.
On 2 February, the three-year-old introduced the Kaavia James Union-Wade x Janie and Jack collection with the children’s fashion brand Janie and Jack.
While speaking to Vanity Fair about the toddler’s new endeavour, Kaavia’s mother noted that her daughter has been a big fan of fashion ever “since she could walk.”
“She’s had an obsession with our closets…the shoes and purses,” Union, 49, said. “It’s all about accessories in my closet and in Dwyane’s closet. She literally likes to climb into his racks of clothes.”
“I guess because of the pandemic, being a pandemic baby, the bulk of her life has been spent us doing press and fittings and everything in our house, so she’s been around it all and has been super, super into it,” the Bring It On star added.
The clothing line features a range of brightly coloured pants, T-shirts, bathing suits, hoodies, shoes, and dresses, while some of the items have floral patterns and ruffles.
And while it may seem out of the ordinary for a toddler to come up with her own clothing line, Union emphasised that Kaavia, whose Instagram account, run by her parents, has more than 1m followers, played a big part in designing it.
“When we were designing this line, people were like: ‘How does a child participate in the fashion process?’ But when we whittled down our ideas between the Janie and Jack design team and me and my husband, we showed [Kaavia] the French Terry [styles], we showed her the triple-tier ruffles and the prints,” Union explained.
“There were things that we loved that she was like: ‘No.’ And we didn’t force any of it on her. If she didn’t like it, that was it,” the co-author of Shady Baby added.
Despite the toddler’s definitive decision-making, making the clothing line was still “a slow process,” according to Union.
“We wanted to make sure this was completely collaborative and truly represented Kaavia,” she added. “And it does. And I’m thrilled how the clothes turned out. I’m thrilled how the campaign turned out and it’s her. It’s her.”
Wade also expressed his hope that people recognise Kaavia’s love for clothes, and her “world of joy,” in the fashion line.
“How do we create this world of joy?” Wade, 40, told Today. “This is a world of joy imagined. So hopefully when people see this collection, they take away from that.”
Even though this is Kaavia’s first collection, fashion sense runs in the family, as Union has her own collection with New York & Company.
“It’s very important for our family to have individual self-expression and I think fashion allows you to have that individual self-expression because what you wear is custom to you [and] how you wear it,” Wade explained.
In addition to Kaavia, the couple are also parents to the basketball player’s children from previous relationships, Zaire, 19, Zaya, 14, and Xavier, eight.
You can find the Kaavia James collection here.
