Khama unveil limited edition fair trade fashion and street art collaboration

Khama has collaborated with fashion, art and fair trade London street artists to create a new limited edition collection. The range consists of one-off bags and handmade pieces that celebrate London’s art. The designers of the limited edition collection include Sweet Toof, Aida, Malarkey as well as empowered women in Malawi. Together the pieces are sure to shake up the approach to fair trade on the street level.

The fresh limited edition range comes from Khama founder Elaine Burke, who after shaking up the tastemaker fashion pack at the Design Museum’s Fairtrade Fortnight and at the London College of Fashion Textile Symposium earlier this year, is making an unique impact in a fair trade way. Using her vast design knowledge, contacts and expertise as a design consultant for stores such as Selfridges, John Lewis, House of Fraser, Whistles and Asos, Elaine is taking her business into the future with more ethically produced products.

However, while her work is not only unleashing a creative, street level approach into the fashion world, it’s also helping others through its amazing work. The Khama initiative and collaboration as a whole offers wide opportunities as well as new approaches to fashion. In fact, the Malawi women who make the Khama bags are all now shareholders in Khama Ltd, and are actually able to see the benefits of the company and watch as the business grows along with the founder.

Even the way the bags are made is helping others. All the bags are created from ethical material made by Micro-Enterprise charities, who seek to empower women in one of Africa’s poorest and most disadvantaged regions, giving them small business loans, training and community support.

When asked about the new collaboration, Elaine is more than pleased about the limited edition collection and working with the London street artists. Elaine says: “Living in East London I am surrounded by Sweet Toof, Aida and Malarkey everyday – so it has become part of my life. They are a passionate bunch of people and really inspired that they are accomplished artists in their own right –Sweet Toof, Royal Academy trained painter, Aida an expert printmaker and artist, all exhibiting widely.”

Flavie Belanco

The bags, which are £25 each, are now available online here as well as at selected London boutiques, Fee Fee La Fou Enterprises in Dalston and Found East London in Hackney Road.