From Trinidad to Knightsbridge: The Cloth’s Harrods Moment
The Cloth marks forty years on the fifth floor of Harrods, trading in the fiber that built Lancashire
From September 7 to October 27, Harrods’ fifth floor is being taken over by a group of heritage fashion houses from Trinidad and Tobago, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Kenya. The temporary shop-in-shop is being staged by Brand63Africa, a social enterprise named in recognition of the year the organization that is now known as the African Union was first established.
Eva Omaghomi is the force behind Brand63Africa. It’s Omaghomi’s vision that has placed Caribbean-made garments crafted using Sea Island cotton back into Harrods’ fold.
“This is not about creating a seat at the table,” Omaghomi explains. “It is about demonstrating that African and diasporic designers have always belonged within the global luxury conversation.”
The pop-up in Knightsbridge offers a snapshot of its work, as Harrods is Brand63Africa’s exclusive UK retail partner, and includes work by Trinidad and Tobago’s The Cloth marking its 40th year in business with the debut of its AW26-27 collection. It’s the only Caribbean label in the shop.
The Cloth was founded in 1986 by Robert Young, whose work has been seen on international stages - Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C., Museum at FIT, New York, and Savvy Contemporary, Berlin; and British anthropologist Sophie Bufton. According to its website, The Cloth “serves as a kind of pulpit for political, creative, and communal expression”. Its signature cocooning silhouettes and patchwork motifs are synonymous with the brand; so, too, is its uncompromising attitude to political commentary.
The brand also sells luxury items made from certified 100% West Indian Sea Island cotto, which has a storied history within the Caribbean dating back centuries.
The History Behind Sea Island Cotton
Sea Island cotton was integral to the success of the British Empire and played a pivotal role in the growth of the country’s textile industry.
Gossypium barbadense, colloquially known as Sea Island cotton, is a variety of cotton that’s native to the Andean coast. Its fiber is a long-staple cotton, making it ideal for spinning into exceptionally fine yarns, fabrics, and garments. It’s native to the Andean coast but was first grown on a commercial scale by English colonizers on 17th century West Indian plantations using enslaved Black people and indentured servants as its primary sources of labor. Barbados began exporting Sea Island cotton to Europe by the 1650s.
The Grocer of 1834
Harrods is perhaps more commonly associated with its current incarnation as a purveyor of luxury goods in Knightsbridge, London. Its history, though, is just as entwined with that of the British Empire. Its origin is a wholesale grocer’s shop that Charles Henry Harrod set up in 1834 on Cable Street in Stepney in East London where he traded in teas, spices, sugar, and other commodities coming into London as part of the Empire’s global trading networks.
A fire took the building in December 1883 and the family rebuilt on a grander scale. The terracotta hall standing on the site today was completed in 1905, under a motto: promising all things to all people, everywhere.
The Harrods takeover comes at a highly symbolic time as Trinidad and Tobago marks the anniversary of 1 August 1834, the date the Slavery Abolition Act came into effect in the British Caribbean. Known as Emancipation Day in Trinidad and Tobago, the date is remembered for ending chattel slavery, though it’s important to remember that the law allowed for another four years of forced “apprenticeship” and saw the government pay £20 million in compensation, but only to slaveholders.
It’s fitting that Harrods and Caribbean emancipation share their 1834 origin stories; the pop-up signifies a kind of reclamation of value in the Caribbean’s relationship with Sea Island cotton. Caribbean countries were reduced to producing and exporting the raw material which was then converted into finished goods in Britain.
Now, for the first time, garments designed, cut, made, and branded in Trinidad using Sea Island cotton grown in the Caribbean are being sold in Harrods. The circle is finally complete, and a new chapter for African and diasporic fashion in London.
The Cloth AW26-27 collection can be viewed as part of the Brand63Africa pop-up at Harrods until 27 October. The brand is also featured in the September issue of Harrods Magazine in an editorial titled “Going Global”.
Comments