‘Birth of the Cool’ is the seminal Miles Davis record the Ivorian label Kente Gentlemen’s most recent collection borrows its name from. An ode to the artistic and cultural achievements of Africans on the continent and its Diaspora in the post-colonial era, the collection takes inspiration from the likes of Davis and other artists of his generation—Fela Kuti and photographer Gordon Parks, among them.
“It’s a very personal collection to me. I can’t imagine how these incredible artists were able to create such magic while being oppressed,” label founder Aristide Loua says of his muses. Despite that, he can relate on some level, having faced his own personal struggles on his way to establishing Kente Gentlemen.
Loua originally founded Kente Gentlemen out of a sense of “a loss of identity,” as he puts it. Having left his home country of Côte d’Ivoire and living in the United States at the time, fashion became his way of reclaiming said identity, but the journey there was not without struggle coupled with a sense of displacement.
Birth of Cool. Photo: via Kente Gentlemen
Birth of Cool. Photo: via Kente Gentlemen
Birth of Cool. Photo: via Kente Gentlemen
The Birth of Kente Gentlemen
Back in South Carolina, Loua started conversing with his mother—a fabric collector—about his desire to create a fashion brand that would fulfill his desire to feel closer to home. “I had no plans to move back home; I would keep working, save money and start the business.” The plan was to work remotely with his mother, but in 2015 issues with his work permit threw a spanner in the works. Loua had to leave behind the life he had built in the US and return home.
“It was quite depressing for me. I went through clinical depression because I felt like I didn’t have a social life. I was back in a country I hadn’t been in for over ten years, dealing with a new type of mentality. I had no personal assets. I’d lost my car. I’d lost my apartment and others things I had invested time and effort into.”
He would eventually shift his mindset and focus on starting what was then called “Kente Boys”—the name informed by his discovery that wax fabrics had merely been adopted by Africans. On the other hand, Kente originated in nearby Ghana around 500 years ago.
After discovering the kente fabric and others like alkebulan, he became interested in their preservation and that of local industries devastated by cheap imports from China and secondhand clothing dumped in many parts of Africa from the West. This would become the brand’s essence—contributing to the local economy by preserving history. “The plan was to add value to something that our people had already been doing since the 16th century.”
Birth of Cool. Photo: via Kente Gentlemen
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