‘How I built a global fashion platform’
The Folklore founder Amira Rasool on using tech to connect designers and power a global fashion community.
Amira Rasool’s tips for building a small business
- Grow your community.
Get people involved and excited.
- Be okay with failing… but do it fast.
Then identify what went wrong and come up with a solution.
- Stay in tune with what’s going on.
It will help when it comes to collaborating with other businesses.
Amira Rasool was working as a fashion editor at V Magazine when she first visited South Africa in 2016. It was on that trip that she became captivated by what she saw as a visionary approach to fashion and styling.
When Rasool returned to New York, her luggage filled with pieces she’d bought, others were just as impressed. “When I got back to the States, people were stopping me in the middle of the street like, ‘Where’d you get this cool bag?’ or ‘Where’d you get these cool sandals?’” she says.
“These styles were very much universal styles, but they were heavily inspired by the landscape that people here are surrounded by, as well as different cultures and things that haven’t been previously popularized in the media.”
And yet when Rasool went to purchase more pieces online, it was virtually impossible. Some brands didn’t have access to e-commerce technology; others didn’t have fully formed supply chains or global marketing capabilities.
Rasool recognized a business opportunity, and at just 22, she seized it, making the leap to relocate to Cape Town and begin the journey to building her own company. Two years later, she launched The Folklore, a direct-to-consumer platform providing global access to design brands from Africa and the African diaspora.
Today, the wholesale platform stocks more than 60 brands, and has seen revenue double year-on-year. What started out as a solo venture for Rasool has now become a fashion business with eight employees in South African, the US, Nigeria and the UK, and Rasool says the most satisfying part of launching The Folklore is the sense of purpose it has provided her with.
Make your story clear
From the beginning, Rasool placed the brand’s mission at the centre of The Folklore communications strategy. “All of the messaging [centers around the idea that] we’re creating economic opportunities. We’re all for developing African supply chains, and this mission really set us apart from [other brands].
"Our mission has really set us apart from other brands."
“I really looked at how do we do strategic partnerships with people? And how are we really talking about what we’re doing? We’re not just saying, ‘Oh, we sell pretty clothes’.”
Rasool is clear about the fact that she was born and raised in the US – and steered clear of traditional African prints or advocating cultural appropriation. “What a lot of companies [have done is] pushed this image of what Africa is and what it looks like.”
“I wanted to be intentional, and I wanted to make sure that it was going to support designers from Africa and the diaspora. But I didn’t want to tell their stories. I wanted them to be able to tell it themselves.”
The importance of styling – and strong product images
Visual messaging is very important to The Folklore, which strives to differentiate itself online. Models, for example, are photographed against a beige background rather than the ubiquitous white or pale grey.
“That became our signature,” says Rasool. “And really making sure that we focused on the styling and having models that represent the brand well, models of all ethnic backgrounds, so that everybody can see themselves in the clothes.”
"Our product images help us stand out."
Creating media coverage and content
As a fashion editor, Rasool, who has freelanced for Time, Vogue and Glamour, understands the value of media coverage better than most.
“I was able to really tap into my network there and get some great stories about us initially. After that, it started spreading through word of mouth.”
Early on, Rasool also reached out to the African diaspora’s community of influencers and culture shapers and featured them in shoots and interviews. The resulting images could then be shared on The Folklore’s social channels, and shared by the influencers as well. “Those things were really what helped drive us.”
Pop-up shops held around the US also helped The Folklore to get exposure to potential customers that might not be frequent users of e-commerce.
Prioritizing the customer POV
From the outset, The Folklore has been determinedly customer-centric, and in the early days, Rasool dedicated much of her time to predicting customer pain points – and then searching for cost-effective solutions. For example, she realized that customers needed transparency over shipping duties, and so she found an app that would offer this information clearly.
“I knew that there were simpler ways to solve some of these problems that didn’t require a huge team,” she explains. “I would go to the app marketplace and just look for whatever would be a good solution to a problem that I was having as a customer.”
It was Rasool’s focus on customer experience that prompted her to partner with Afterpay. “We hadn’t even been in business for a year, and we had Afterpay. We were one of the first companies that I know of – small-business wise – that was using Afterpay that early… and it paid off. A lot of our customers were buying that way as early as 2019.”
Rasool found that Afterpay was an incredible tool in introducing The Folklore to a wider audience. “Early on, we would be front and center on the [Shop Directory] when people would go on the website. We got a lot of traffic that way, a lot of customers found us through that,” she says.
Amira Rasool’s tips for building a small business
- Grow your community.
“Get people involved and excited about what you’re doing by tapping into things that they’re interested in. This means you need to really know your customer base so that you are able to cater your content, your services, even where you might do a pop-up shop, to them.”
- Be okay with failing… but do it fast.
“Something that I got from participating in [the seed accelerator] Techstars last year, was that if you fail, do it quickly, and make sure that you can pivot when you do. Don’t continue to do something if you consistently see that it’s not working; don’t keep putting money or energy into it. Just fail, quickly, look at what it was that prevented you from being able to succeed, and then come up with a solution.”
- Stay in tune with what’s going on.
“I think this is actually something I have not been really good at, making sure that I’m staying in tune with the industry that I’m in, knowing what’s going on there and being able to collaborate and do things with other businesses. I’m very much a head-down person when I’m working and it’s hard for me to stay in tune with what’s going on in the world. Now, luckily, I have a team that can be the eyes and ears.”
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