Our Story

February 2019 there was a boycott of designer brand Gucci that took place as a result of them using blackface on a sweater. To put things in to context, blackface gains it's orgins from "white performers who darkened their skin with polish and cork, put on tattered clothing and exaggerated their features to look stereotypically "black." The first minstrel shows mimicked enslaved Africans on Southern plantations, depicting black people as lazy, ignorant, cowardly or hypersexual. (CNN.com)" So, for this notoriously African American supported designer brand to vcreate such an offensive design, many called to do away with designer brands and buy from black businesses. Jovante and Darsha decided to participate in the shop local African American owned businesses and soon found it to be less empowering and more of a task. They would visit flea markets, vendor fest, and small pop-up shops but could not remain consistent with the vendors they loved the most due to their lack of online precence. Many of those same vendors stated that they could not afford the maintainece of an online presence and doubted that they would ever go towards it just because they felt it was uneccesary. The concerned couple began to think "how can we make this easier?" Jovante, saw the same type of disadvantages minority serviced based businesses were facing with the location based booking platforms available to them. Many could not afford the platforms resulting in a lack of exposure to possible customers. Melanoid Exchange was birthed from the concerns of minority owned businesses in the service and product base industries.