17 Beautiful Black-Owned Brands That Are Ethically Made in Africa

Image credit: Diarrablu

Usually, posts like these have affiliate links, which pay me a portion of sales made off of traffic that EcoCult sends to retailers. For this one, however, we are linking straight to brand websites even if they are carried in department stores, so that the brands keep the full markup for themselves.

African fashion brands and craft has been having a moment. Partly, it’s due to the swell of support during the protests against police brutality in 2020. But a larger part of it is that African fashion is beautiful: exquisitely tailored, exuberant, original, and high quality. And more and more, you can order it right online.

“There has been tremendous growth,” Emmanuel Ekuban, known as Nuel, founder and editor-in-chief of Debonaire Afrik, told me on a video call from Accra, Ghana in 2020. “Brands are beginning to put their stuff online, working with publications, working with production houses, and having their own store. They can now export to other countries. They have concept stores stocking their stuff in Europe. They’re crossing borders and creating a connection with the Western world.”

These brands offer a fresh and exciting perspective to a fashion industry that seems to be stagnating. “Everything looks so new,” Amira Rasool, founder of The Folklore, which sells and represents African and African-diaspora brands, told me in 2020, as the movement to support Black fashion entrepreneurs and creators took off. “They’re removed from the mainstream, and what may seem like a super creative thing to you is something they’ve been doing for years.”

But Rasool cautions against putting the entire continent, which ranges widely from Morocco down to South Africa, in an aesthetic box. “African fashion doesn’t look one way,” she said. “There are so many different cultures within Africa, there are so many different people within Africa, and so to designate an entire industry to one sort of image to what African fashion should look like is dismissive of all the many cultures and ethnicities that are there and how that is reflected through these Africa-based designers.”

African fashion is sustainable and slow fashion.

West Africa especially is experiencing a boom in design, and while some local brands source their fabrics cheaply from China, many are exploring sustainability from a unique perspective: supporting local production and materials, and testing ways of adding value to the tons of secondhand fashion that flows into its ports every hour. “The fashion industry in Ghana has become more open to sustainability and ethical fashion,” Ekuban said. “Most of the brands I love are ethical brands because most of the production is local women and men creating with local products. I know brands in Nigeria, Abidjan [in Côte d’Ivoire], and Mali are also using local production.”

Most importantly to this conversation, much of fashion made in Africa is inherently sustainable and slow because it is made to order by skilled tailors and seamstresses of locally produced or upcycled materials. “Out of necessity. They don’t have resources to access big factories that will mass-produce their product,” Rasool said.

The Folklore, which has about 85% of its items stocked in New York ready to be shipped out, is an exception to the rule of made-to-order. Rasool is conscious of the luxury consumer’s expectations. “Waiting a week for it to be produced and shipped is not something people are willing to do, especially when they are paying a luxury price,” she said.

If you’re shopping online, you won’t get the full made-to-measure experience of working with an Accra tailor. But if you’re looking to purchase directly from an African brand, expect a more bespoke experience, complete with the anticipation of waiting for your item to be made just for you.

African fashion is luxury fashion.

Unfortunately, missionary and charity brands have often shown the wrong side of fashion made in Africa to Americans. (Rolled paper bead necklaces, ugh.) But true African fashion has a rich heritage and involves unreplicable skills. “The continent is incredibly blessed with resources,” Omoyemi Akerele, founder and chief executive of Lagos Fashion Week, told me in 2019 for a Vogue Business story. “From cashmere from South Africa or handweaving, the bogolan fabric from Mali, and kente from Ghana. Handweaving, embroidery, spinning, embellishment — there’s so much, we can go on and on. It’s not just the looms or the dyeing process, the beauty of the continent is that a lot of things are still touched by hand. That is luxury.”

When I asked Rasool how she responds when someone tells her The Folklore’s prices are too high for them, she said that she doesn’t support anyone spending outside of their means but stands firm in the value of the product. “The Folklore has a very targeted customer base: people who make a certain amount of money… The reason why these things are priced the way they are is that they’re not produced in mass quantities. This price reflects what it takes for them to cover costs.”

But she wants people who ask this question to interrogate their biases, conscious and unconscious. “Are they saying the same thing about European or American brands? Are they suggesting that our prices are too expensive because they don’t associate the concept of luxury with Africa? Are you saying you’re cool with paying x amount for Alexander Wang but not for Orange Culture? When you purchase these products, they’re being made by hand, with love,” Rasool said. “The price tag reflects the amount of TLC put into the products. They use magnificent fabrics and deliver something truly unique.”

If African brands will succeed and take their rightful place on the world stage alongside other luxury and upscale brands, we’ll need to look at them with the same desire and respect that we look at Western luxury brands with. “I don’t like brands that attach aid to their brand,” Ekuban said. “I’m not going to buy Louis Vuitton because a child is hungry in Pakistan,” he pointed out. “Fashion brands in Africa are just like any other fashion business. Don’t buy it for aid, buy it because you appreciate something. People should buy from African brands because they love it and you want to support it. Not because a child is hungry somewhere.”

Can white and non-black people purchase and wear African fashion?

As with many things, it depends.

“Definitely yes,” Ekuban said. “Before racism, the one thing that keeps us all together is love. Every brand loves its customers. Buying from Black designers is a way to unify us together as people. It’s a cycle, you buy from me and I buy from other people.”

“White people shouldn’t wear dashikis [a traditional West African patterned men’s top],” Rasool said. “This is also a personal preference,” she hedged. “I’m sure designers want money. Personally I don’t recommend and I side-eye people who walk around in dashikis.”

Luckily, there are plenty of African designers who are inspired by their heritage, but don’t let it define their aesthetic. But when in doubt, Rasool says to avoid patterns and go for solid colors. You’re also safe to shop anything carried by The Folklore. “We purposely stock items that do not overtly represent any traditional element of African heritage,” Rasool said. “Everything on our website can be worn by anyone of any color.”

Black-Owned Sustainable and Ethical African Brands You Can Shop Now

The Folklore

New York & pan-Africa

The Folklore is a New York City-based multi-brand online concept store and wholesale showroom that allows U.S. based and international customers to easily shop exclusive styles from Africa and the diaspora’s top luxury and emerging fashion brands like Andrea Iyamah, MaXhosa, Loza Maléombho, Orange Culture, Simon and Mary, and Pichulik. Exclusivity and sustainability is key for The Folklore, so each season it carries a limited stock of each luxury item. Most of the fashion, accessories, and homewares available were handmade by local artisans based in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Morocco, and Cote D’Ivoire. To be clear, not all of the 30 brands currently carried by The Folklore are founded by Black people, but even if you end up choosing something from the six white-owned brands, buying through The Folklore is still a great way to support a Black-owned business, as well as dip into the best of what the continent has to offer.

A A K S

Ghana

Cee Cee’s Closet

New York & Nigera

Cee Cee’s Closet NYC was created by Chioma and Uchenna Ngwudo in New York City, who celebrate the beauty of West African prints through their unique headwraps, accessories, and clothing. Everything is designed by them in New York and handmade by artisans in Nigeria.

SEKBI

Mali

SEKBI’s ready-to-wear pieces are created using bogolan, a traditional mud-based textile printing technique popular in Mali. This pigment printing method consumes very little water, making it an eco-friendly dyeing process. The brand sources high quality cotton from Italy and other parts of Europe. Its long-lasting pieces are entirely made-to-order, reducing unnecessary textile waste.

Kayadua

Ghana

KAYADUA is a Ghanaian based fashion brand founded in 2018 by Eyiwaa Agyekumhene. Built to inspire confidence and freedom of expression. The collections are often hand-made, and KAYADUA explores the connection between self and strength through traditional techniques such as weaving, beading and intricate processes with their team in Accra.