As the movement has brought Black designers to the forefront, their small businesses are enjoying new attention as well as facing growing pains.
The first week of June 2020 was memorable for AAKS designer Akosua Afriyie-Kumi. She woke up to hundreds of orders via her brand’s online store — a volume of sales unprecedented in the handbag line’s six-year history.
“I knew the [Black Lives Matter] protests were happening, but I was wondering, ‘why are people shopping?’,” she recalls. “Then I realised a lot of people were sharing lists of Black-owned businesses online. From June to December [the sales] never stopped.”
For AAKS, based in Ghana, direct sales online grew by 700 per cent in 2020 alone. From her home workshop in the city of Kumasi in the south of the country, the designer is preparing orders that have been placed by major international retailers over the past nine months.
Full Article @ Vogue Business