Afro Fashion Pop-up: Bridging the Gap for African Fashion Brands in the UK

Mannequins wearing bright African fabrics. Hangers heavy with unique outfits beckoning on passersby. 20 African fashion designers. Two days. Welcome to the Afro Pop-up Fashion event at Sook, Birmingham. A few days before, the space would have likely been empty or had another small business displaying their wares to the teeming crowd at the Bullring Shopping Mall in Birmingham. It was November 2023, the month of cheaper purchases, thanks to Black Friday. So, it was not out of place to have a Black Friday event dedicated to African fashion–the Afro Fashion Pop-up.

Organised by Fashion Fusion UK–a fashion retailer bringing together independent designers to showcase and sell their new designs across spaces in the United Kingdom–the collection boasted of a diverse range of designers, from Urielchelle’s exquisite delicate designs to the Ozawoman’s vibrant form-fitting creations, the inspiring hoodies by Insparel, and Kaffy Kreate’s unique reinvented adire attires. There was something for everyone, child or adult.

“Sales is a major part of a business’ success,” says Babalola Adedoyin, the founder of Fashion Fusion UK and director of Kaffy Kreate, a fashion brand in the UK. Many creative people focus more on the creative process rather than marketing and sales. For fashion designers, this means backs bent away from the world, crafting patterns, skilled hands guiding fabric through whirring sewing machines, transforming ideas from their minds into actual clothes.

“They are focused on the beauty of the product, forgetting to put in the work to connect the product with the market.” Babalola says that this is where Fashion Fusion UK comes in. “We bring the product closer to the customers, we let the customers interact and also give us feedback, we also give independent designers the opportunity of being an High Street brand for a few days.”

Different people entered the store; some looked through the array of outfits on display while others picked fanciful materials, got their measurements taken for their custom-made outfits. According the Babalola, this was the first kind of event featuring solely black fashion designers in the city. The idea emerged from a desire to tap into the city’s fashion pulse.

Before Birmingham, Babalola had lived in Lagos. Before Lagos, she was a fashion student in London. While in London, she took short courses at the London Fashion School; she also interned with leading fashion brands like Kosibah. Whenever she was not in school, she worked at a mall where she had access to leading fashion brands at the time.

“It was a good way for me to take most of these brands in at once. It really opened my eyes to what is possible with fashion,” Babalola remembers. However, with her recent relocation to the United Kingdom on the Global Talent Visa (Fashion), she chose Birmingham over London because of her young family. However, she soon realised that unike London, Birmingham was not as fast-paced neither were many residents really into high African fashion.

“I wasn’t seeing those fashion events in Birmingham so if there is something you want and cannot see, create it right? I felt that it was important to do things properly, even as a newbie in the African fashion space in Birmingham,” Babalola says.

“The pop-up was like piecing the whole puzzle together. It was like the missing part of the puzzle. A space for African fashion designers to display their work for the world,” Babalola says that the choice of Sook was critical because of the footfall at the Bullring Mall every day.

According to the UK Fashion & Textile Association, in 2021 the fashion and textile industry added 1.3 million jobs, contributed £62 billion in gross value to the country’s GDP and £23 billion in tax payments to the UK government. Babalola says, Black fashion designers have to do more to put their brands in front of their clients.

“This is my first time exhibiting in the UK,” stated Imelda Obiora of Emeldah Atelier wearing a colourful raffia-inspired dress and standing beside a table of Africa-inspired earrings and accessories beside her. Obiora, who began her creative practice in Nigeria five years ago said that African fashion isn’t just about wearing clothes, it has a critical relationship with identity.

“I like the fact that African fabrics are different. They are not just clothes you wear to cover your nakedness, they also say something about your origin. And this is what spaces like this fashion pop-up gives people,” she said as she moved away to attend to a new customer looking keenly at the ankara fabric on her stand.

“I was impressed by the reception. Many people turned up and were attracted to my outfits because of the crystals. They are all custom made dresses,” said Olayemi Akinyeye, the founder of Uriechelle who also relocated to the UK from Nigeria. 

Starting a business in the UK after having established a brand in Nigeria is akin to an adult learning to walk again. Yet, these Nigerian fashion designers are taking it all in their strides.

“For me, I will be lying if I said that I thought it would be easy. There is a path to success and there is no jumping it. So, everything is a phase. It is just to constantly remind myself that it is a phase,” Babalola says that beyond being avenues to sell their collections, the pop-up was also a networking opportunity. First, the designers engaged themselves as black creatives working in the same industry; second, they were also able to engage other people who sought to work with them.

“Many of us work in isolation, so working together to make this a success was quite important,” Babalola says that the next Afro pop-up will not only be bigger as she hopes to feature more fashion designers  but it will also last for more days, allowing more shoppers a longer time.