YOU may have seen many of your favorite footballers and stars on social media making the divided London gesture.
Footballers Caleb Chukwuemeka and Saikou Janneh and actor Cole Anderson from the Netflix series After Life have shown their support for the Southend-based clothing company.
Takondwa Maosa, 20, and Daniel Fairhead, 21, launched the brand in April last year and it has only grown from strength to strength.
Alex Cara, President of Pandora and Director of Retail at Nike, is now acting as a business advisor.
Dream team – Takondwa, Alex and Dan.
“We have had a great response so far. I think a lot of people get our message that we’re young and we’re trying to do something positive and they respect that,” Takondwa said.
“We’ve been thinking outside the box with our shared hand sign, it’s a way to promote our brand and engage in social media challenges without celebrities having to wear the brand.”
Takondwa and Dan work together to create the unique designs.
“I have the ideas and Dan can digitize them. We then go to the manufacturer and work with them to create something that represents our brand,” said Takondwa.
Takondwa and Dan are optimistic about all the experience Alex will bring.
Dan said: “Alex told us that he saw the Echo article and decided to get in touch with us because he was impressed with what we are doing.
“It has already made a big difference to the way we work. Alex has contacts with all the major manufacturers and we are in talks with some in Italy and Turkey, it would have taken years to get to this point alone.”
Business is booming as Takondwa and Dan browse through her clothes.
The duo strives to promote their brand in their own unique way.
“People who model our clothes are from Southend and London, they know and love the brand and ask us if they can model the clothes and take a picture. Having people who like the brand is more important to us than paying for a model to wear it, it feels more real,” Dan said.
The ethos behind the named corporate brand is to “inspire positive change” in the younger generation.
The couple are passionate about showing youngsters that there’s more to life than getting caught up in crime.
Pro fighters Jonathan Kumuteo, Costello Van Steenisn and Walter Gahadza, UK diver Matty Lee (MBE), Tyler Humphreys and NoahWilliams (GB diver) took part in the trending Instagram challenge with the ‘Divided London’ hand signal.
The brand uses the slogan “normalizing being different” to encourage people and young people to be comfortable with themselves.
Visit www.dividedlondon.com for more information.
Comments are closed.