Story of Her Life

Brother Vellies founder Aurora James sidesteps the glamour to confront hard truths in her powerful new memoir.

- By André-Naquian Wheeler

STANDING TALL

James wears Brother Vellies shoes and Christopher John Rogers dress. Photographed by Tyler Mitchell.

On an unseasonably warm, sun-soaked February afternoon, Aurora James is taking a break from the whirlwind of New York Fashion Week at the Italian restaurant Gemma. In the past week she has thrown a gala for her nonprofit, attended shows by Brandon Maxwell and Rodarte, and, presently, is sitting down to discuss her memoir, Wildflower.

If this all sounds like a feat of multitasking, it should come as no surprise from James. Over the last three years, aside from writing her first book, she also launched the industry-changing nonprofit Fifteen Percent Pledge—a drive to push retailers toward committing at least 15 percent (the size of America’s Black population) of their shelf space to Black-owned brands—while continuing to run her successful, CFDA-winning label of mindfully made shoes and accessories, Brother Vellies. “I felt like it could only ever help to be fully honest and transparent,” James, wearing a knit Brandon Maxwell dress, says of her decision to publish a memoir at the age of 38. “When I meet young girls, they always ask, ‘How did you get to do what you do?’ And it’s hard to answer that without people understanding where I came from and how I was socialized in the world.”

That’s exactly what she wrote about. There are barely any scenes of fashion, or glamour, in the opening third of