Hello and welcome, my name is Elma-Lorraine; I grew up in Liberia, surrounded by community, the kind that never looked to the world for validation because it already came from within.

I grew up in love. My mother and her sisters would begin preparing days before a big event. You see, our house was ALWAYS full because there was always something happening in the community. Our kitchen would be bust and hot, but it was filled with the kind of laughter that made you feel safe just being near it. As kids we stayed alert, watching for the perfect moment to sneak a piece of juicy meat from the hot boiling pot but you had to move quietly and quickly before an aunty caught you with a fufu stick. But in that case the reward always outweighed the risk.

The women in our community showed up for everything — every birth, every loss, every celebration. Not because they were asked, but because that is what our community did.

And when the aunties showed up.....they did so in style. Draped in Liberian gold necklaces with that unmistakable shine, layered with intention. I loved watching the women wear their V-shaped rings — pieces that were never just jewelry, but a rite of passage. I remember how they entered rooms and owned them — never in competition, always in celebration of one another.

Every piece of jewelry was a visual language. A homage to culture. A quiet but powerful affirmation that they knew exactly who they were and where they came from.

That feeling — pride, community, heritage — was planted in me as a child. And it has never left.

When war tore apart my beautiful cocoon of safety, my family relocated to the United States, leaving behind my sweet Liberia. While our location changed, the essence of those women stayed with me.

Growing up in the U.S. as a dark-skinned, full-figured, gap-toothed girl, I carried an unshakable confidence — not because the world affirmed my beauty, but because my community already had. I never needed to look outside for role models. I was surrounded by them. I was shaped by them.

As I stepped into my own life, there was always one place I knew I would work — home.

For nearly fifteen years, I traveled across West, North, East, and Southern Africa. From the women who cooked for me and cared for my home, to the ministers and directors I sat across from in meetings, they all carried the same thread: pride, confidence, tradition — the unmistakable presence of an African woman who knows exactly who she is.

I went on to spend years in public service, most recently as a policy advisor with USAID, working at the intersection of African development and international policy. I believed in that work deeply. And then, like so many others, I was let go when the administration shifted course.

I stood at a crossroads.

And I thought about the market women — the economic backbone of our communities. Women who did not wait for institutions to make room for them. They built their own tables. They showed up every day with their hands full, their heads high, and took care of their people.

That is who I come from.

So that is what I did.

Legacy Design is everything I grew up witnessing — pride, tradition, beauty that was never about appearance alone, but about identity, roots, and carrying something real into every room you walk into.

Every piece passes one question:
Does it honor our tradition and culture?
Does it make the woman who wears it feel the way the women in my life made me feel?
Is it handmade in Africa?

If the answer is yes, it finds a home here.

Welcome. You belong here.

Elma-Lorraine
CEO and Founder, Legacy Design

“Our culture is not a trend. It is not an aesthetic. It is our living, breathing inheritance.”