Joi Stewart is a fashion entrepreneur and a former athlete whose unisex clothing line is called Fairway Golf Culture. Stewart saw that there was a lack of diversity and acceptance when it came to Black and Brown people in the golf community and she wanted everyone to feel included.
Stewart opened up about her design process, the importance of inclusivity, and how golf applies to life.
What is the design process for your brand?
So, it’s collaborative. I do have a designer, and he’s out of this world. I come to him with ideas and we will talk about it. Every design that I have now, we crafted from the mind of, “This is a need and this is how I feel about this, these are the colors that I want to exhibit, and these are the designs,” so we collaborate on it. We dropped six shirts in our campaign and our first collection dropped on April 10, 2023. But we have like 30 shirts and we are locked and loaded. … But every single piece means something and so as we keep dropping collections, we’ll let people know what everything means. Hopefully, it resonates with them.
How do you incorporate inclusivity into Fairway Golf Culture?
So, it goes into our mission and our purpose. We are here to preach inclusivity and we want people to be able to define [who] they are with what [they] wear. What we wear truly does define us or it helps [to do so], and we want people to freely be able to express themselves. On the golf course, it shouldn’t be any other difference, right? So I’m really happy that we get to spread the word, I’m really happy about our ability to let people know that we belong in these spaces, we belong on those golf courses, making those deals, and we get to express ourselves by doing so.
What lessons can people learn from the game of golf?
Golf is life. When you really break it down, you talk about using your tools, which will be my clubs. I’ll hit a ball and it will land somewhere. Depending on where it lands, you have a goal and you have to reset yourself or use another tool that gets you to that goal. So that could be the people around me, that could be my mindset, that could be anything. Then that goal, you’re constantly shooting at that ball, trying to hit it, and trying to get it to the goal. So you got to make constant adjustments. I say golf is life. I didn’t really discover that until recently, but you’re constantly making decisions based on where you land; life. You’re constantly making sure that you’re going to the next swing and it’ll be your best one, but you’re talking yourself out of it; life. So golf is life, people.
