After leaving Goldsmiths university in 2007 I felt overwhelmed. I was doing the odd fashion internship here and there, trying to get on the ladder to an ethical clothing company but it seemed as though that without financial backing it was near on impossible. So I decided to try and do something on my own. Freetown, Sierra Leone is a place that I had grown familiar with and rather adore. I had spent the last 3 years travelling out to Freetown for various holidays as my parents were based out there. Slowly I began to notice material shops or a tailors on every street corner. Not like any other material shop I had seen, these had fabrics over flowing there shelves and door ways, desperately trying to keep the suns rays from fading the colours and prints. The fabrics are beautiful and extremely radiant, they radiate this sense of strength and vibrancy. The prints are detailed and powerful and once this is conjured up into an edgy design it gives the wearer a sense of power and individualism.

I became mesmorised in these shops spending hours making my way through the different prints and colours, I would end up getting far too carried away and wanting every piece of material in site. But what really struck me is that even though these tailors and material shops crowd the narrow streets of Freetown they are barely surviving.

While I was at Goldsmith I lived in Deptford a place that is home to West African prints in London. So it gave me this rather familiar smell and sight of Sierra Leone. One thing that I kept on noticing was that the only designs that were produced in these prints were traditionally African, great in their own right, but not likely to appeal to the average London fashionista. So I decided that I would try and fill that gap. Even though I did not study Fashion design I believed that my sense for a good design, combined with the talent of tailors in Sierra Leone, could build a strong team to create a unique collection.