From dropping out of university due to a lack of funds to teaching himself how to hold a hand needle. Nearly 2 decades later, Urban Zulu Founder, Papy Kaluw says he is not done using his sewing machine.
Kaluw is taking Urban Zulu to the world.
The Pan African clothing brand has partnered with Nubian Hueman, a modern boutique store featuring African apparel based in Washington DC in United States of America.
“The roots of Urban Zulu have always been about African people uniting,” says Kaluw.
He adds that “this partnership allows Africans and those with African roots, no matter where they are to experience Urban Zulu and be united through clothes.”
The partnership will allow Urban Zulu to have physical presence and a store in Washington D.C. But that’s not all. The partnership between Urban Zulu and Nubian Hueman is just an introduction of the brand into the global fashion sphere. Urban Zulu plans to have a number of pop-ups stores in the United States.
The first pop-up store was in the middle of Manhattan in New York City on Tuesday, 12 April 2022.
Currently, Urban Zulu has a footprint in South Africa through physical stores in Johannesburg and a number of stockists. The brand also has representatives in Swaziland, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Botswana. The plan to open a store in the United States is not new. Kaluw already had a plan in place, but due to the coronavirus pandemic, all needed to be halted. “Prior-Covid we had just come back from the US where we had managed to get a place to sell and then that was supposed to be 2020 – we were supposed to launch in April 2020, then we had other bigger plans in South Africa. But then obviously lockdown came.”
Kaluw says he just glad his business has been able to weather the coronavirus storm. And is happy to continue on his journey to unite Africans across the world through clothes.