Labrum London’ creative director Foday Dumbuya hosted a unique and immersive performance that took the audience on a journey to South London’s Brixton Village. This was the place where Dumbuya grew up and wanted to share his story with the world.
The performance included a mix of poetry reading, dancing, live music, beer, and grocery stands with African cooking essentials like cassava and plantains. Dumbuya explained that the audience had to come to Brixton to understand the story as it cannot be told in central London. He wanted to showcase the journey from Sierra Leone to London via Cyprus through his collection titled “From Greener Pasture”.
The collection was a celebration of Dumbuya’s journey and offered a wide range of tailored pieces, outerwear in vibrant prints, two-tone denim, and a coat and a jacket printed with passport stamps. The designer said that the collection was all about travel and the journey people make from Africa to a better life abroad. He wanted to highlight that life abroad is not always what it seems, and people have to work twice as hard and pay bills regularly, but they move with their culture, which is what he wanted to put out there.
Dumbuya also enlisted friends and veteran advocates in the local Black community to be a part of the show. One of them was Kenneth, who stood out on the runway for his smirky face and swaggy walk. The designer explained that Kenneth was a connoisseur who always told stories about Africans and was proud to be African, even when no one in the diaspora wanted to be African. He was also a pioneer in African dance music and a great dancer.
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