What do a box of Lucky Charms, a gallon of gasoline, and a glass coffee table have in common? Well, for one thing, they’ve all been turned into purses by Jada Holmes.
Under the username @AfroPuffJada, the 23-year-old Bay Area-based creator has been sharing her out-of-the-box outfits and wild looks to her 100,000+ followers on Instagram and over half a million followers on TikTok.
There’s no exact equation to Holmes’ outfits, which is what makes them so unique time and time again: anything the creator gets her hands on can become an accessory, from a bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch to an entire toilet, and she’ll have a color-coordinating outfit and witty one-liner caption to match.
Nothing is off-limits when it comes to Holmes’ looks (only the most innovative of design thinkers would put a purse strap on a printer and tote it around), and at the creator’s core is an openness to expression through color, whimsy, and a little bit of camp; if accessorizing is a sport, Holmes is an Olympic Gold Medalist.
Posts on her Instagram date back to 2018, but she truly shot to widespread virality last September, when she paired a hot-pink outfit with a purse she created from a Lucky Charms bowl, acquiring over 32,000 likes and hundreds of comments raving about the accessory, regaling her with titles ranging from “ARTIST” to “VISIONARY.”
Below, Holmes reflects on her social media rise and talks us through some of her most viral, boundlessly creative looks.
When did you start taking an interest in fashion?
I would say I first started in fifth grade, when I was in charge of picking out my graduation dress for my graduation ceremony. I picked this elaborate dress and it was kind of like a wedding dress, really not for a graduation, but that was really when I was able to begin to start picking out my clothes. After that, I just enjoyed putting outfits together and accessorizing them.
What would you say inspires your outfits and accessories?
I first got my first Instagram account when I was 14, and I would take photos. I would put outfits together the night before, wear them to school, come home, take photos, and I would start uploading them online. I started TikTok in 2020, and I really originally started as a comedy page, but people started noticing my outfits. That's when I was like, okay, now maybe this is the time I could start showing off my outfits. So that's when the outfits came into play really on TikTok. And my Instagram has been since I was 14, so almost 10 years now that I've been taking photos.
What would you say inspires your outfits and accessories?
I would have to say music. I listen to a lot, so when I hear a metaphor or a punchline, I tend to run with it and begin creating outfits based off of actual song lyrics.
I've noticed that your mom features a lot in your content on TikTok and Instagram. Can you tell me a little bit about your relationship with her? Does she lend a helping hand in your content, or has she influenced your fashion growing up?
I would most definitely say she really plays a huge role in that. She really pushes me to continue getting these elaborate items and turning them into purses and pairing them with my outfits. I would have to say she really plays a huge role in that. She's the one that really helps me bring the pieces together. If I need something I'm like, Mom, can you help me out and go try to find this item for me? And she'll have it within five minutes.
Tell me a little bit more about your cereal bowl purses. When did that concept first come to you and what's the process like of creating one?
Well, I get addicted to a certain meal at a time and it was cereal at that time. And as I was literally eating my cereal, I was like, This would be a great purse. I had already done the ranch purse, and I was like, If I could turn this into a purse, that would be really cool. So that's when I proceeded to go to my local craft store and I got all the items, including the real Lucky Charm cereal and I just started to mold it into the bowl.
After it was in the bowl and it set and everything, I actually really didn't use the bowl until a month after I made it, because I was like, Should I really do it? And then I was like, I might as well just go for it. I was a little scared at first to put that out there.
Can you walk me through the moment when you first saw an everyday object and thought to yourself, I'm going to make this into a purse to wear?
I would say the ranch. Because there was this saying going around, "Call me ranch, 'cuz I be dressing." And I had this outfit and I couldn't find a purse to go with it because I didn't really want all of the purses that were out there, those types of novelty purses. And I was literally in my kitchen, and I see the bottle of ranch and I'm like, Well, that's going to be my caption, so I should bedazzle it and actually turn a ranch bottle into a purse. It was just literally just sitting right there, speaking to me, like "use me." And that's when I decided to bedazzle it and add a purse strap on it.
What would you say drives your creativity the most?
Really just the joy of others. The feedback I get, I get a lot of messages and it's people telling me like, Oh, you really helped me be myself, thank you for being different. I would have to say that really pushes me to continue doing it because there are people out there that can really relate to the elaborate things that I do.
Photos via Instagram
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