‘Belle Collective: Birmingham’: Boss Babes Amber…
Source: Belle Collective: Birmingham / OWN
Two tenacious Birmingham belles with a penchant for retaining it real have stepped into the highlight, talking candidly with BOSSIP about business, the appeal of Alabama’s Magic City, and the “attempted Southern hospitality” among a group of six strong-willed girls.
Source: Belle Collective: Birmingham / OWN
Amber Jones and Funmi Ford shone during the premiere of OWN’s Belle Collective: Birmingham, where they detailed their boss babe mindsets while opening up about their personal lives.
For content creator Funmi, who’s identified for her aptitude for fashion, that meant showcasing her husband, sons, and even sister, while highlighting her heritage.
It also meant showcasing her spicy character, as she quipped that her hubby shouldn’t have a say in the design of their new home.
“I don’t think a man should get a vote when it comes to your house, especially if you’re the architect in the home, which women, that’s what we are,” said Funmi. “You’re not in the kitchen cooking. You’re not cleaning this house. You should just let me find the house, and then you bring your paycheck.”
As for Amber, the Belle Collective: Birmingham premiere meant detailing her earlier skilled basketball profession, her Life Key Financial Group, and, of course, Canvas Beauty.
Jones is the proud CFO and self-described “business soulmate” of Stormi Steele, whose Canvas Beauty empire continues to grow as seen on the show that highlighted the model’s La La Anthony Collection launch.
Source: YNOT iMages / @ynot_images
The profitable profession girls are two of the Belles starring in Carlos King’s latest actuality show about navigating business, household, and friendship in the South.
For Funmi, the show affords a likelihood to problem perceptions and current a more unfiltered model of herself, she told BOSSIP’s Managing Editor Dani Canada.
“I’m a really funny person,” Funmi said. “I feel like sometimes people don’t see that. They think I’m sort of strict, but I like to have fun. I like to laugh. I don’t take myself seriously.”
Amber, meanwhile, is leaning into the personal, inviting viewers into her home and her unconventional household dynamic.
“My niece lives with me… so we’re more like sisters,” Amber said. “Just seeing me balance trying to develop her into a young woman while also acting as close friends, that’s the part I’m most excited for everyone to see.”
While Funmi said becoming a member of the sequence was an simple yes, because it aligned with her work as a content creator, Amber approached the chance more cautiously, stepping out from behind the scenes for the first time.
“I’m always the person behind the scenes,” Amber said. “Putting my personal life out there was a really big thing for me—but I was like, ‘Why not? What’s the worst that can happen?’”
Source: Belle Collective: Birmingham / OWN
That shift comes with a studying curve. Funmi, who is used to curating her digital presence, described the transition to actuality TV as both liberating and unsettling.
Source: Belle Collective: Birmingham / OWN
“For the internet, I call it controlled vulnerability. I show you what I want you to see,” she told BOSSIP. “You can’t really do that with reality TV. You’re having to be your most authentic self.”
Still, both girls embraced the chance, bringing their households along for the journey, even as they navigated the discomfort of elevated visibility.
“It was a little scary… having people meet my kids, my husband,” Funmi said. “But at the end of the day, you only have one life. Take every opportunity. Make the most of it.”
Beyond personal storytelling, Belle Collective: Birmingham also goals to reframe narratives about the South, significantly Birmingham, the “Magic City” the forged says is often neglected.
“We’re really thriving,” Funmi told BOSSIP. “Whenever I travel and I’m in New York, they’re like, ‘Girl, you’re in Alabama? What is there? Tumbleweeds? Are y’all barefoot?’ Have y’all never stepped foot in the South? It is not what it was back then. Birmingham is so metropolitan, so thriving. We have a great mayor who’s doing great things. I’m so excited that he brought it here because we needed something like that here.”
Amber echoed that sentiment, framing Birmingham as a metropolis that affords both steadiness and alternative.
“It’s not too fast and it’s not too slow. It’s the perfect mix,” she said. “The perfect mix for families, the perfect mix for career. You can connect on a deeper level with different entrepreneurs. There’s so many different cultures here, so many different vibes. You can be really fancy one day, go to a hole in the wall the next. It’s okay with just being who you are.”
The girls agreed that the sense of id and neighborhood is central to the sequence, though it doesn’t come without its challenges.
When BOSSIP requested whether or not Southern hospitality outlined the group dynamic, Amber was candid about the realities of mixing six personalities.
“There was attempted Southern hospitality, for sure,” Amber said. “Everyone has their own definition of it… and when you’re bringing together a group of six women, it can have its ups and downs. Everyone was raised different. Everyone speaks different. Everyone has different opinions. So bringing that together, it was a little difficult.”
Source: Belle Collective: Birmingham / OWN
Funmi added that a lot of the early friction stems from navigating those variations in real time.
“You don’t know how to communicate because you all have your own style,” Funmi said. “You’ll see the rough patches in the beginning, but really how we navigate that. I think that’s going to be the best part of the show.”
Still, both say the expertise in the end displays the realities of entrepreneurship, far past the polished pictures often seen online.
For Funmi, that means pulling back the curtain on both the wins and the setbacks.
“If we can do it, you can do it too,” she said, noting that success is often more advanced than what’s portrayed on social media.
“It’s not this glitz and glam course of… you see when we make the tens of millions, but you don’t always see the issues that go fallacious. With the show, you’ll see the curler coaster of what a business actually is. It takes work. It takes growth. It takes losses and failures.”
Amber echoed that sentiment.
“Just do it,” she said. “You’ll see us failing, figuring things out, throwing things at the wall and hoping something sticks. If you get anything from us, it’s just to start. Done is better than perfect.”
The second even sparked a giggle during the interview, with Amber joking that her niece has her saved in their telephone as “MLK” because she’s “always got a dream and a quote.”
As for how they might describe Belle Collective: Birmingham, Funmi provided three phrases: “strong, beautiful, growing,” while Amber summed it up more succinctly as “the perfect mix.”
Together, the 2 say the sequence captures precisely that, a layered, evolving look at Black business, sisterhood, and self-discovery in a southern metropolis carving out its own lane.
A new episode of Belle Collective airs Friday at 9/8c on OWN!
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