Wrapped by Africa: UK fashionista brings the continent’s best threads to Camden

Lucas Barrow-Townsend was born in London to a Nigerian mother and English father. After leaving university, he built the brand Continent Clothing from a mere idea into a booming business. Having focused on African studies at university, he had employment offers from the World Bank and the British council but decided to start his own business. “I wanted to see the change that was happening for myself,” he says.

Barrow-Townsend believes he owes his quick success to just throwing himself into the work. He sells his clothing online in markets around London and in festivals, his main haunt being Camden market. He uses Facebook and Instagram to communicate with his customers, saying that the best strategy is to “just to see what people think”. Certainly people think positively of the products – the business has grown tremendously in the last ten months.

The young entrepreneur has always been interested in clothing design. The concept for Continent Clothing is a brand with roots in African and a global reach – not one continent, but many. “One thing that West Africa has is an abundance of fabrics and I feel they are underutilised”, he states. Continent Clothing’s tailoring is done in Gambia, with fabrics sourced from Ghana, Senegal and the Ivory Coast. His bags are tailored in Tanzania.

He likes to know every single person in the production chain, and tries to give his customers the same insight. To ensure that every customer knows each person in the production chain, every article of clothing is named after the tailor who made it (much like Lush products). He believes this brings a story to the brand. His dream is to one day produce the clothing on a large scale, with a goal to reach the American market.

Barrow-Townsend loves the variety in everyday life he experiences in the countries where he sources his tailoring and fabrics. Even though some of the areas he visits are very poor, he finds that, overall, the people are still incredibly happy, with a great sense of community. He tries to incorporate this into Continent Clothing. Since the markets he sells his clothing in are booming with tourists, the goal to reach many continents is not too far-fetched, and it won’t be long before Continent Clothing is global.

Details

Photographer : Jennifer Moyes
Location: Shoreditch
Model: Manon Lagreve
For more info, visit: http://www.continentclothing.com/