I shop Black-owned brands all year round
‘Buying Black’ should not just be an annual trend in February
What tempts and compels us to shop the way we do? In The Shopping Diaries, writer and committed shopper Emily Tamfo takes us along on her monthly spending journey to find out. This month, she puts her shopping addiction to good use.
Hello world! It’s me again. If you’re like me and somehow survived January 2021, officially the longest month in the world’s history, you blinked and have now found yourself in the middle of February, desperately looking for the light at the end of the tunnel. Thankfully, things are starting to reopen (ish), which means that soon you’ll have ample opportunity to treat yourself with the money you saved from Dry Jan. In this month’s shopping diary, I’ll be sharing how I plan to spend my coins on businesses near and dear to my melanated heart: Black-owned brands.
Last summer, as a direct result of George Floyd’s death and what I’ve been calling the “unveiling of the Karens,” there was a clear shift toward holding major fashion, beauty and retail corporations more accountable for their lack of diversity and representation. Perhaps more importantly, there was also a concerted effort to support Black-owned brands and businesses. People were compelled to support local Black communities in any way they could, so last summer they invested their allyship into the businesses around them. While I love and appreciate the movement, in recent months I’ve grown worried that “buying Black” has reverted back to an annual trend, rather than the holistic shift in mindset it was intended to be. Simply put, in the words of Charlamagne tha God, we need to “keep that same energy” all year round — not just after an atrocity or for the 28 days of Black History Month.
Thus, for me, shopping Blackowned brands is a year-round conscious choice. Particularly when I shop fashion and beauty, my hope is that if I support brands built by people who look like me, I’ll be able to see myself in the products around me. As a pimply tween growing up in Oakville, Ont., I distinctly remember the blank stare I got
when I went to find a foundation at my local pharmacy’s cosmetic counter. Like “the limit” in the Mathletes equation at the end of “Mean Girls,” it simply did not exist. Now I love knowing that a makeup product in my exact hue was made for me with intention; I wasn’t an afterthought. And, even better than being able to buy a foundation that doesn’t make me look like Edward Scissorhands, supporting local Black-owned brands directly helps create jobs, empower communities and inspire young entrepreneurship.
Homa Ogundu, founder of Uloani, started her Ottawabased fashion brand in September 2019 and has seen a positive upswing in business as a result of the BLM movement. “People started moving toward purchasing from Black-owned businesses and it really helped,” she says. “The clothing business is a hard industry. You’re competing among a sea of businesses
and you don’t have nearly the same budget. I really appreciated that people made a commitment to say, ‘I’m going to shop local and I’m going to shop Black.’”
The 23-year-old has also seen the direct impact of her choice to use Black models in her online content. “The Uloani girl is one just like me,” she says. “I remember when I posted the first round of pictures on Instagram, I got so many messages saying, ‘Oh wow. It’s so nice seeing that you use only Black models.’ That’s something I appreciate that I didn’t think anybody would notice.” Needless to say, I noticed. I easily saw myself in the esthetic and, soon after, I made my first purchase (a chunky hand-knit cardigan that I have not taken off since).
For those who think it’s too difficult to shop the hottest Black-owned items in Canada: aht-aht! I beg to differ. I bought my mini Telfar bag, a.k.a. the “Bushwick Birkin” (don’t worry,
it’s only $150 U.S.!) by young Queens-based Liberian-American designer Telfar Clemens, from Ssense and it was at my door in 36 hours with no customs charges since it shipped from Montreal — God, I love Ssense. Of course, they’re sold out of the bag right now, though they do carry Telfar for Converse sneakers, graphic tees and squeal-inducing unisex logo boots. Telfar bag drops happen once a week on the brand’s own website and literally sell out in seconds, but it can be done if you hover over the button at the right moment.
For those who love sustainable fashion — which should be all of us! — GTA-based “ecoluxury” brand Beyond Space makes one-of-a-kind pieces from recycled materials. According to designer Xavier King, each item is for the person who appreciates the creativity of a triple seam in an ordinary T-shirt and wants their clothing to be as unique as
their personality. In preparation for what I hope will be Comeback Season (a.k.a. spring), I got the cropped buckle denim jacket to rock with sneakers for an elevated casual look, or heels for some future social occasion that doesn’t take place on Zoom.
And for my fellow skin care enthusiasts who need new ways to stave off the wrinkles this quarantine has cursed us with, the Toronto-based, cruelty-free brand Serumize, founded by biochemist Elizabeth Shabi, has a Peptide Quench Serum packed with 12 anti-aging peptides to help give us the glow we couldn’t get from summer 2020.
Black talent, faces and voices have been at the heart of so many of the world’s biggest fashion and beauty trends. Buying Black-owned is my way of thanking them for their innovation, inspiring the next generation and putting my shopping addiction to good use.