ANDILE CELE

Streetwear designer and store owner, Andile Cele, gives us an inside look at his two-part brand, D.O.P.E Store

Why did you open D.O.P.E Store?

It all started with me playing sports, basketball particularly. You know when you play you’ve got swag, you wear Jordans and stuff like that. So I started making T-shirts and caps and that just grew. Then I got to a point where I wanted to open a store because I couldn’t see my brand living in all the existing stores because it was a mixture of skate and sneaker culture, so I decided to do my own thing.

How did you establish your brand?

I decided to drop out of school and I took a job as a waiter and saved some money and then I moved to England to try to learn more about retail. On long weekends I’d go to Paris, but not as a tourist, I’d check out stores like Collette, and also see the sneaker and streetwear culture out there. When I came back I decided to move forward with the store.

How did D.O.P.E Store clothing come about?

Lucilla asked me to show at SAFW at the last minute because somebody had dropped out. I got my friends, the cool kids of Braam, to model, and that was really like a shocker for fashion week. It gave me a platform. I’d just been doing T-shirts and stuff, so then for that first fashion week I had to come up with a look for D.O.P.E Store and that’s kind of how we started and over the years it’s just been about refining it.

How has D.O.P.E grown over the years?

I’m always asking myself how a brand grows with its consumers. I looked at brands like Comme des Garçons and what their model is and I got inspired to start segmenting the brand, so I started DOPE orange, DOPE black and DOPE plus. I try to be a little experimental because I’m always looking for ways to grow with my market. Then I also started doing collaborations because brands started realising that I’m talking to a consumer that they have difficulty speaking to.

What is the D.O.P.E store aesthetic?

Essentially I do luxury sportswear. I come from a retail background so I try to make clothes people want to wear every day.