About the Founder

Shantel took her first paying job in fashion at the age of 18 when she secured the role of a Sample Cutter for a company that was, back then, the second largest fashion supplier to Marks & Spencer. Her main responsibility was to spend days upon days cutting out samples and, though the mundanity of it was enduring, Shantel concedes that she learned a great deal from it.

Surrounded by a wealth of experienced and immensely talented seamstresses who had variously managed to find their way to London from corners of the world so far afield as Sri Lanka, the Caribbean, Turkey or China, Shantel learned how different fabrics draped and flowed depending on its weight and the cut of the pattern piece. She learned how to pick the correct stitching method according to the material and style. Above all, she learned how to work quickly. By now Shantel was rushing her food during her lunch breaks so she could better use the time to make an outfit (from scratch) to wear partying that very evening.

Over the course of the next three years Shantel picked up invaluable skills that she would carry with her for life.

With time came steady progression and Shantel climbed the industry ladder, one rung at a time. Learning every step of the trade, she paid her dues. By her third job in the industry, now as a Garment Technologist, her duty was to ensure the garment correctly fit the model. She was now regularly attending Fit Meetings and contributing to the overall design process. She was responsible for liaising with her counterparts at vast factories in India and China, providing them with instructions for alterations to the garment construction. She would be responsible for quality assurance testing to ensure clothing met the appropriate British Standards, or that the correct labels were applied as per EU directives.

Shantel went on to work as a Garment Technologist for several High Street brands. Household names including Hobbs, Phase Eight, Tesco, Next, Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, Miss Selfridge, and New Look. In these positions she gained retail fashion experience to stack up with her years on the manufacturing side.

Ever the ambitious, and always the hustler – during this time Shantel also ran a side business of designing clothing for boutiques in two of London’s most trendy shopping destinations; Carnaby Street and Camden High Street. She had named the business Dead Gorgeous.

After several years of back-of-house work in the fashion industry where she had learned the intricacies of the craft and the nuts and bolts of the trade, it was time for Shantel to move front-of-house. And she did so by landing a dream job in New York. She became the Technical Designer for renowned fashion designer Cynthia Rowley, one of New York’s top names in fashion, where she was part of the team responsible for creating Cynthia’s catwalk shows at New York Fashion Week in Bryant Park.

For many people in fashion, a job at a top New York City fashion brand would be the zenith of their development. From there they would then vie for positions at the top European fashion houses and journey their way to the top of fashion. A well-trodden path. Not Shantel.

She always wanted more. It had always been about designing her own clothes. That had always been the dream. But in her dreams the vision had never been vivid enough for her to know how that would manifest. Then on a holiday to Ghana in 2012 it came to her.

She decided to buy a few dresses at wholesale and bring them back to the UK to sell to family and friends and gauge their reactions. Well needless to say, they loved it. And because there was such a positive reaction, Shantel made the decision to design her own clothes again. But now she would do so commercially.

The journey to Ghana had ignited something in Shantel. She now had a clear vision of what she wanted to do with her fashion experience and expertise. She rekindled Dead Gorgeous but with a branding overhaul. It was now to be Afrocentric. The name had to change. The ethos had to be different. It all had to marry into something far greater than just the clothes themselves.

Shantel had returned from Africa infused with a new energy. A far deeper vibe than she had ever felt before. She felt connected to the continent in ways far more profound than ever before; back when it was the stuff of idealistic dreams she had read in all those books, all those years ago. In all those libraries and during all those hours skipped from school.