This Women’s History Month Love, Bonito and Asian American Girl Club have teamed up to debut their very own TrailBlazers collection. Yes, pun intended!
The Singaporean brand Love, Bonito partnered with the social media community and clothing line Asian American Girl Club to create their new TrailBlazers collection. This collection fully embodies the work that both brands have done to uplift Asian American women, championing their voices. The collection highlights five accomplished Asian American women in diverse fields. Each sports their very own limited edition blazer from the collection. Featured trailblazers include actress & Asian American Girl Club (AAGC) founder Ally Maki, comedian & storyteller Sherry Cola, astronaut & founder of Rise Amanda Nguyen, Olympic figure skater & diplomat Michelle Kwan, and popstar & actress Paravi.
To top it off, each blazer comes with a specially designed pin. The collection features four pins: The Phoenix (representing resilience), The Sakura (symbolizing renewal), The Ginkgo (honoring those who overcame adversity), and The Asian American Girl Club pin. Each pin represents the trailblazer’s journey and pins can be customized to the owner’s personal style. The collection also includes other fashion-forward pieces to empower women. These include fashionable business wear such as button-downs, skirts, and pantsuits.
“With any collaboration with Asian American Girl Club, it is so important to us, for it to be authentic and organic. And that is exactly how it started with Love, Bonito,” says Ally Maki.
After their 2023 New York City pop-up with Love, Bonito, the two teams enjoyed a celebratory dinner together that evening. The collection’s idea was birthed over chips and guac. Maki chatted with the teams about how she always wanted to create a jacket or blazer. The group consisted of all Asian women. A team member looked around the table and shouted the word “trailblazer,” which ignited the concept for the two brands’ next collaboration – high-quality fashion blazers that highlighted Asian women trailblazers.
“It really was organic, and so beautiful, and we’re just so proud,” Maki adds. “All we really need to do, and I think what the power of AAGC is, is get all of these women in one room together. Sharing drinks, sharing food… connecting. And I think that’s what’s so beautiful about all the collaborations we do. Is that they start from this very needed and authentic place of just sharing and swapping stories.”
Additionally, Maki herself is a blazer lover, company owner, actress, advocate and new mom. She emphasizes the importance of how multipurpose a blazer can be while also empowering the person who wears it.
“Whenever I put on a blazer, and especially our AAGC Love, Bonito one, it just instantly reminds me of the kind of woman that I feel inside. I feel unstoppable. I feel I can go into any room and feel I can speak my mind and take up space,” says Maki.
The common thread between Love, Bonito, AAGC, and Maki has been empowered advocacy. The Seagrass star explains she was extremely shy growing up. Finding her voice became her personal Mount Everest.
“I have to remind myself that if I don’t tell my particular story it’s never going to live anywhere. It’s always going to stay within me… I’m a fourth-generation Japanese American. My family has a very deep history in this country,” she goes on to say. “These stories, they need to live on and they need to continue, and I realize that if I can be that vessel for those stories, it’s not necessarily about me personally ever. It’s more about how we can continue on to make our trailblazers proud. Whether that’s our own parents, our grandparents, the people who came to this country who risked everything so that we could have a voice.”
Maki hints that there will be more meaningful Asian American Girl Club collaborations to look forward to soon.
She says, “We’re really excited to just continue to create amazing spaces for our community to show up. Whether that’s events, whether it’s with these fun collaborations…doing more media. A little bit of editorial or potentially a podcast. So we have a lot of exciting things coming up this year, that hopefully will take these conversations and take this community, into places we’ve never been before.”
Photo Courtesy: IW Group
Full TrailBlazer Collection at https://www.lovebonito.com/us/global/trailblazers-aagc
