‘We lift each other up’: Feben on community and building a global brand

To receive the Vogue Business newsletter, sign up here. Emerging designer Feben, one of this season’s hot tickets at London Fashion Week, did not grow up dreaming of a career in the fashion industry. “I couldn’t really afford fashion, so I just customised things. I guess that’s why I love textures so much now, because you can make something really special from something that’s quite plain,” Feben says, speaking from her studio in Dalston, east London. Feben is part of a cohort of emerging talent that is shaking up the London fashion scene with an energising diversity of viewpoints and backgrounds. She’s moved fast. Shortly after her 2020 Central Saint Martins MA womenswear graduate collection, titled It’s Not Right, But It's Okay, Beyoncé asked her to create and style costumes for the video of her song, ‘Brown Skin Girl’, which celebrates dark-skinned Black women in particular. Her signature twisted textural technique, sophisticated drapery and laser-cut garments have attracted orders from multi-brand retailers Ssense and Browns — and customers including actor Michaela Coel and musician Erykah Badu. Her first London Fashion Week show, last September, was received well. Feben declined to share sales figures. Her Autumn/Winter 2023 collection, Scales, is inspired by the chariot tarot card, suggestive of moving on, overcoming challenges and finding strength. It builds on SS23, which was inspired by divination and tarot cards. “The collection’s birthplace is in the middle of contradictions,” she explains. For her, that means a juxtaposition of softer pieces and silhouettes with harder and sturdier materials. “I always question what strength is. You can find vulnerability in strength too, which is quite cathartic.” Buyers are excited by what she’s doing. “[Feben uses] texture, interesting shapes, colour and pattern to create luxurious and surrealist designs that give her collections a real point of difference to anyone else in the market,” says Holly Tenser, buying manager for ready-to-wear at Browns. “Her designs are both feminine and bold, and Browns shoppers are drawn to her unique offering. Her twisted silk technique is particularly striking and also incredibly comfortable to wear.” Besides her recognised dexterity with textiles, Feben has displayed a special ability to weave community and heritage into her pieces. She is of Ethiopian heritage and grew up in Sweden, moving there when she was around two years old from Pyongyang in North Korea. Feelings of displacement informed Feben’s global approach and interest in how cultures interact. “It’s very important for me to think about who I work with. Even with my research, it’s so obvious where things come from,” she says. Her customer is like her, she says — “eclectic, curious and radical”. Community is built into her craft: Feben has a longstanding “very personal” relationship with artisans in Accra, Ghana, dating back to her Central Saint Martins MA collection. Her best friend is also from Accra: “I told her what I was looking to make and she said she knew a guy. That’s how our relationship started.” For AW22, Feben worked with another friend — Maria Bernal, who founded Jakhu Studio, a London-based jewellery brand that works with women silversmiths from Peru. “Community is really important,” she says. “I like working with people in my first circle, we lift each other up — that’s really important. When people come to work with me on placement, it’s important for me to know their background so I can know how to lift them up. [When] I work with artisans in Accra, it’s really cool because it’s lifting their business up. I think it’s important that everyone feels important. I don’t like the hierarchy in the industry.” That focus on community is appreciated by Browns’s Tenser too. “Feben has built an authentic community. Her work draws on her own background and global upbringing. She expresses her own experience and exposure to different cultures through her art.” Browns began stocking Feben’s menswear and womenswear in June 2022 as part of Browns Focus, a platform designed to support emerging talent. The exploration of personal identity is a long-running theme at London Fashion Week. “British fashion is always about identity, it’s taught to be your unique resource. You are you, and your world is inside you, and you are encouraged to speak about that because your individuality is your power,” says Sarah Mower, Vogue fashion critic, British Fashion Council ambassador for emerging talent and chair of the Newgen committee. She highlights Feben’s contemporaries who make up a new generation of British talent, including Saul Nash, Priya Ahluwalia, Labrum, Olyibi Thomas, Supriya Lele, Harri, Jawara Alleyne, Kaushik Velendra and Maximilian Davis. “The narrative of their backgrounds makes these young designers particularly strong. It’s really important that this generation is rising up and speaking about their stories, but I wouldn’t say their talent rests on that. They’re great designers but very different — you can’t lump people together.” Feben agrees with Mower’s point. “It’s really interesting to know where someone is from, but I guess they should just look at my work, you know?” she says. “I think people don’t know what to make of me. Some people feel they can’t write Ethiopian, but they can’t say I’m Korean either. And I get annoyed when people say I’m Swedish because I was called the N word there the majority of the time that I lived there.” For Feben, the personal will always be political. “Even with my research it’s so obvious where my [inspirations] come from, because no matter how I express myself it will become political,” she says. “In a way, when you’re a Black woman, you’re not treated fairly in most industries. It just takes a bit longer to have any room or space or be spoken to correctly. I think I’ll always have that no matter what room I walk into, whether it’s fashion or not.” Growing the business Feben joined both the British Fashion Council’s Newgen programme and the Swedish Fashion Council’s talent incubator last season. “Every brand in SFC Incubator is handpicked based on criterias covering creative excellence, innovative business models and a disruptive vision. Feben is a great example of a brand that embodies all these three aspects,” says Jennie Rosén, CEO of the Swedish Fashion Council. “Not only is Feben an extraordinarily talented designer, she also has a unique story and perspective to bring to the table.” Feben says she’s “super grateful” to be part of the incubators. “It sometimes feels like you don’t have as much help as you’d like because you graduate, then have to figure things out yourself or learn from your friends’ mistakes,” she says. Support needs to start earlier — at fashion school — as does mindful inclusion, she says. “Design tutors need to think about how they speak to students or whether they have the correct support when they go home. You don’t know how you can affect someone in a bad way.” Vogue’s Mower says improved funding opportunities for students are helping the UK's fashion industry become more diverse. “Access to education is really difficult and expensive,” she says. Scholarships are generally more accessible in the UK than in the US. “Scholarships being implemented is one of the reasons why the cohorts are much more representative of what British culture looks like,” she adds. Feben’s brand is entirely self-funded and she works with a small team. “It would be great to have investor revenue to grow the business financially,” she says. Top of her agenda is to grow her team so she can focus more on design and less on production, developing more partnerships with artisans. “It’s only the beginning of the brand. I’d love to explore more things but you also have to be realistic,” Feben says. The challenge is to maintain the intimate sense of community as she scales. Against a backdrop of economic headwinds, global instability and pressures for system change, emerging brands are facing plenty of challenges. “To scale, the brand will need to match its incredible creative strength with an equally strong business competence,” says Jennie Rosén of the Swedish Fashion Council. “This situation makes carefully constructing a business model that will last and contribute to a better future very important. This is one of the areas that SFC helps brands with, but as an incubator there are limits to how much we can do and the brands need to have the right competence in-house as well.” For Feben, future-proofing her business means having a diverse and inclusive team. “With clothes, everyone’s always talking about how sustainable the fabrics have to be,” she says, arguing for equal importance to be accorded to the composition of teams, reflecting the diversity and classes of modern Britain. There’s a fundamental question to ask, she says – “Where does your team come from?” Key takeaway: Feben is part of a generation of emerging talent on London’s fashion scene with diverse viewpoints. She champions community by working with friends, developing close relationships with artisans and being mindful about her team’s backgrounds. With that, though, comes the conflicting feelings Feben has about the constant focus on her own heritage. The challenge is to develop a business model that allows her to scale while maintaining that intimate sense of community. Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com. More from this author: Marni and Maison Margiela drive sales growth at OTB Why Stella Jean and WAMI are boycotting Milan Fashion Week Tapestry raises outlook as DTC sales offset wholesale losses

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