Afriek goes to London with pop-up shop in Shoreditch

London - Afriek has opened its debut pop-up store in London, marking the start of its international expansion. Best known for its hand-made tailored blazers, the young fashion brand, founded by Sivan Breemhaar and Kars Gerrits, offers sustainable designs which are made in by local tailors in Rwanda Africa.

The pop-up shop, located on Rivington Street 1-3, Shoreditch, marks the brand's first retail foray outside of its home market, the Netherlands. The move signals Afriek expansion plans, as the brand aims to open another pop-up store in Paris in the future to continue growing its international presence.

"We have done some research on how to bring our brand abroad and found that London would be the best next step for us," explained Breemhaar to FashionUnited. "Our brand focuses on the cosmopolitan citizen, open to traveling, cultures and new ideas. Shoreditch, next to Camden and Brixton came out best for locations for our pop-up shop and we chose Shoreditch as this was the best venue we could find."

The pop-up shop, which is set to run for one week from July 18 to 23, features a curated selection of Afriek men's, women's wear as well as accessories. "Since we opened we received a lot of positive feedback for the choice of the location from customers, and Londoners are even more enthusiastic about our brand than we could've imagined," added Breemhaar.

In addition to running the pop-up shop, the brand is also in close contact with a number of stores in London to stock their new SS18 collection. "We are looking for further visibility in the UK market through collaborations with online platforms, musicians, and influencers. We are planning a few more pop-up shops in the same location through which we hope to create more visibility for our local stockists and web shop as we ship internationally."

Photos: courtesy of Afriek