Malcolm X caps might only be a fashion fad, but jackets, skirts, blouses and dresses made from imported African fabrics are here to stay.
The owners of Pompano Beach-based Ethnic Ybor City Corp. travel to Africa for the best goods.
Elliot Nassim Saidi and Nathaniel Styles founded the company in 1990 to sell wholesale African pottery, carvings, clothing and leather goods to stores nationwide. They opened their first warehouse in Tampa and moved operations to South Florida a year ago. A handful of JC Penney stores throughout the country carry the company’s merchandise.
Two weeks ago, the partners opened a boutique at 428 E. Sample Road in Pompano Beach near their warehouse. They plan to launch a mail-order catalog in February to coincide with Black History Month.
“African-Americans today have a renewed interest in the clothing that reflects their heritage,” said Patricia Arrington, fashion editor for New York-based Essence, a magazine aimed at black women.
More and more African-Americans are starting to feel the need to buy black and wear clothes that are close to their culture, Arrington said.
Essence has worked with Ethnic Ybor City on fashion shows highlighting clothing made from imported African cloth. A number of today’s designers are using African fabrics in a Western way, Arrington said.
JC Penney grew savvy to the interest in African culture and history two years ago. The Dallas-based retail chain set up 20 “Authentic African” boutiques in its hometown and other cities such as Jersey City, N.J., and Cleveland, Ohio, where blacks are 20 percent or more of the population.
The boutiques at JC Penney stores have been selling out of the African imported merchandise, including clothing, handbags, hats and other accessories.
“We definitely recognized a need in the market for this merchandise,” said Bruce Ackerman, spokesman for JC Penney in Dallas. “It has sold very well.”
African-Americans earned about $263 billion in 1990, according to the 1990 U.S. Census.
African-Americans have made the interest in African clothes more than a fashion trend – the clothing has historical importance too, Styles said. He and Saidi have crafted functional clothes from materials they collected in Africa.
Saidi, a Nigerian businessman, has contracts with different tribes to create the fabrics, pottery and hand-carved crafts. Nigeria has about 250 tribes and each specializes in a craft, Saidi said.
The tribes hand-weave the fabric on horizontal looms, producing long strips of material only two to four inches wide. Some of the finest weaving goes into the Kente cloths of the Ashanti of Ghana, who use silk and similar threads, Saidi said.
At Ethnic Ybor City, the African fabric sells for between $5 and $45 a yard. Styles and Saidi have fashioned the cloth into Western-style women’s suits that sell for about $225. A Western-style, long-sleeve men’s blue indigo cotton shirt costs $45.
Ethnic Ybor City’s customers have been diverse, Styles said. In addition to African-Americans, the merchandise appeals to the “artistic yuppie type – former Woodstock and flower children” Styles said.
“We’re trying to reach as broad a market as possible,” Styles said. “The market for this merchandise is not restricted to any particular geographical area. It appeals to a broad base of people.”
