From Fashion to Function, Black-Owned Businesses Make their Mark
African and Caribbean culture is embraced through the Black women-owned businesses selling their products in London.
Black-owned businesses have always been an integral part of London’s economy. They have historically been incredibly important in supporting the residents of London, and that support has continued into the present.
According to Black Wall Street London, businesses led by Black owners provide three percent of total London employee jobs and there are more than 10,000 Black-owned businesses employing one or more workers in London.
More often than not, Black businesses — as well as their individual owners — are overlooked when it comes to recognition for their contributions to London society and to the world. A Black History Month article by the BBC brought several of these people to light, such as fashion designer Bruce Oldfield whose clients included that of Princess Diana. Her fashion is often replicated today and has inspired many trends, even after her death in 1997.
The past couple of years have seen a resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement which began in 2013. In the wake of this worldwide revival, many Black-owned businesses, big or small, are continuing to build themselves up. They are celebrating their stories, culture, and people through their products and services.
The Black Culture Market is an organization that allows businesses of African and Caribbean descent to showcase their products while celebrating their culture and support for the community. They hold events on various weekends around London, most recently in Brixton.
Amara, 27, sells illustrations that often playfully depict Black children. Her business was born from increased free time during the pandemic, and did not start with the goal of turning it into what it has become.
“The area that I live in, in Birmingham, is quite artsy,” she says, her silver-rimmed glasses reflecting the overhead lights of the department store basement. “I started to put together things once I’d seen advertisements for other crafts fairs…not really with the intention of making it anything but it’s slowly becoming that.”
“A lot of the things that I make, there’s nothing kind of revolutionary about them apart from the fact that I illustrate Black people, especially Black kids,” she says.
Amara aims to provide people the opportunity to buy a product that matches the identity of the person buying it. “For me, it’s about representation more than anything and normalizing normal,” she explains. “It should be normal to just pick up a birthday card with a child that looks like your child on it. It’s about normalizing normal ’cause all of these things aren’t revolutionary.”
Yvonne, 37, was born and raised in Malawi in East Africa and moved to the U.K. as a teenager. Her culture is celebrated through the business she started for her kids to feel more represented.
She explains why she began her business by describing how much her two daughters love “plasters,” otherwise known in America as Band-Aids. “They pretty much use them like stickers,” she says. “I realized there isn’t much for them to identify with in the industry so then that’s how [the business] got born.”
The name she gave her product is Hero-Plasters. She describes them as, “Afrocentric plasters that are inspired by Africa.” The characters featured on the plasters are Sahara and Kalahari, named after the biggest deserts in Africa. Their appearance, such as the intricate white face painting, is all representative of African culture. “My daughters can look at them and say, ‘Oh mom is this me?’ That was what inspired it.”
“Connecting with different people,” she says, is something that she finds important to being a Black owned business. “It’s quite inspiring…to know that you’re servicing a market that’s not highly represented.”
Charmain sits at her own table, every inch covered with different flavors of her infused Caribbean and English cakes. Her business is based in Birmingham, but she occasionally comes to London to sell her products.
“I think my favorite part about my business is actually talking to people ’cause I am a people person,” she says with a friendly smile on her face. “I love making cakes in different flavors. I dream flavors. I wake up in the morning and think ‘Oh great, that was a good idea, let’s try it!’”
She continues, “It’s just good meeting people and there’s times when I’m [at markets] supporting other people.”
Bami, 29, has an eye-catching table of various bright orange, army green camouflage, and black products all part of her brand named after herself. “I hand-stitch leather accessories,” she explains. “I started doing cardholders and then I started getting bigger and bigger and bigger.”
All of her products feature the logo of a black panther, an animal she felt connected with while studying Native American totem poles in 2014. “I went straight to the black panther, but I thought let me just take a step back and think why,” she says about her time searching for her own spirit animal. “I looked into jaguars and leopards and a panther is actually a melanated jaguar or leopard, so it’s not its own species. I thought that’s amazing.”
Her dream is to have her own small workshop. As for how she feels about being the owner of a Black-owned business in the city of London, she says, “I think it’s beautiful because we’re able to all come together.”
The support that is given to the sellers and businesses that are part of the Black Culture Market is essential in keeping their culture alive and showing how important they are to London, the U.K. as a whole, and beyond. The next event dates of the Black Culture Market are 6–7 August 2022.
