16
HAPPENINGS
Founder and designer Farai Simoyi. Photos by Susan De Vries.
A Place to Call Home
by NADIA NEOPHYTOU
When Farai Simoyi first started designing her own
eponymous clothing range, Farai, she found it difficult
to get into stores, or at least even find out what to do
to get into stores. The designer had worked at fashion
houses like Beyoncé’s House of Deréon and on Nicki
Minaj’s Kmart collection, but branching out on her
own brought its own challenges. “I would get a lot of
‘no, no, no,’ ” she says. So she created The Narativ,
a concept store on Tompkins Avenue in Bed Stuy.
Simoyi, originally from Zimbabwe, would often get
compliments on the items she’d bring back from trips
home, so she decided to create a platform to showcase
African artisans in the U.S. — and provide them
with the guidance she lacked when she first started
out on her own.
“The whole reason The Narativ came about was, being
a designer, I understood the struggles of wanting
to get into a retail store, wanting buyers to see your
work, creating look books, doing photoshoots and
not seeing the return on it,” she says. “It’s so hard for
buyers to give you feedback. Granted they’re busy,
and there are a lot of factors involved.” Initially, Simoyi
wanted to just bring global brands together in one
space, but she realized she could help even more.
“A lot of the products from back home don’t necessarily
translate into the U.S. market so what we’ve had
to do is help brands alter things to really do well once
they come here. If I take on a brand and they don’t do
well, what’s the point?” she says. “We added a creative
director, and once a brand applies to be in the
store, she will take a look at the entire collection and
give advice. So there is this whole back end of artist
and designer support. This is really a place to grow
and cultivate for them to become the best brand they
possibly could be,” she adds.
The store specializes in sharing the stories — hence
the store’s name, The Narativ — behind the brands
stocked, whether it’s the Ugandan label Gwavah,
which makes bags out of tree bark and cowhide,
or Mary Jean Jewelry, a South African line of handmade
jewelry inspired by symbols found throughout
the African continent. Many items are sustainable,
such as a zero-waste color-blocked leather wallet by
Ikwetta that was so popular it sold out, and all are
artisan made, including a line of ceramic mugs individually
decorated by South African street artist Alfa. The
Narativ has become so popular, Simoyi has a waitlist of
brands wanting to be part of it. “It’s not just an average
store,” she says. “It’s for artists, designers, creators —
it’s a home, just a space to be. Sometimes people will
just come by to say hello. I’ve met some of the coolest
people that live in Brooklyn just sitting in my store, so
I’m really thankful and grateful for that.”
Her own creative spark is still alight. Simoyi was selected
to take part in the Netflix reality show, Next in Fashion,
which debuted in January, in which she and 17 other
designers competed for $250,000 and the chance to
become the ‘next big thing’ in fashion. “Doing the show
really put me back in my element, in terms of designing
and wanting to create, and not just being the person
behind the designers,” she says. She created a capsule
collection with some of The Narativ’s artisan partners in
Nigeria and Benin that will be at the store in future seasons.
“I’m a designer and a creative person. Everything
stems from that. Had I not been interested in that, The
Narativ wouldn’t have ever come about.”