entrepreneurship / Founders

Michelle Ngonmo’s talent incubator, founded in Italy in 2015, platforms and supports BIPOC fashion talent and creatives while building bridges between hubs in Cameroon, Rwanda and Ghana to fashion capitals like Milan, and soon, Paris. BoF sits down with Ngonmo to explore the association’s mission and impact.

The Bicester Collection launches the third edition of the Unlock Her Future prize — an entrepreneurship programme aimed at supporting women social impact entrepreneurs focused on furthering the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. BoF sits down with The Bicester Collection’s chief culture officer, Chantal Khoueiry, to learn more.

Young menswear and streetwear brands are opening stores across downtown Manhattan at a moment when young consumers are eager for in-person shopping, social-media marketing feels stale and menswear customers are looking for new options.

BoF’s Imran Amed talks with grime MC and rapper Skepta about the revival of his clothing brand Mains, the parallels between music and fashion, and how embracing failure has been key to his creative journey.

In the third and final part of this series, BoF Insights spoke with investors and brand leaders about how to secure future growth before pursuing costly expansion activities in today’s tough financing environment.

Today’s brands are constrained by crises across direct-to-consumer and wholesale distribution and limited external funding pools. But it is still possible to scale a small label, even in today’s tough environment. In part two of this series, BoF Insights spoke with investors and brand leaders about how to translate cultural heat into commercial success via diversification.

The recent closure of some of fashion’s buzziest brands laid bare the many hurdles facing even the most promising designers. But it is still possible to scale a small label, even in today’s tough environment. In part one of this series, BoF Insights spoke with brands and investors and drew upon its own advisory experience to outline how to translate cultural heat into commercial success.

BoF speaks to five BIPOC designers based in New York, LA, Chicago and London on the non-profit’s Brand Fellowship programme to learn more about how RaiseFashion’s educational programming, network and financial resources are helping them strategically grow their businesses across the US and further afield.