Skip to main content

The Manual may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site.

Apparel Brand Diop Crafts African Diaspora-Inspired Streetwear That Cares

Customers wearing The Diop Top made from ankara fabric.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

When Mapate Diop was growing up in New York City, his mother would regularly travel to her home country of Nigeria, bringing back to the States with her rolls of ankara, a popular fabric used in West African fashion. Diop’s mother would then find a local tailor to have custom shirts made from the brightly colored and patterned cotton cloth, which Diop would wear with pride. These garments made him feel special inside, and they also became a way for him to outwardly celebrate his heritage. But Diop knew he was lucky, and that for many people like him, that experience simply wasn’t readily available.

It wouldn’t be until much later that Diop would take this personal feeling – and its connection to a clothing item that represented so much to him – and turn it (with the help of an inquisitive friend) into a full-fledged business. Today, this sentiment still embodies the ethos of the Diop brand, which, with quality and comfort at the forefront, makes African diaspora-inspired streetwear. Formally launched in September 2018 by Diop and co-founder Evan Fried, the Detroit-based label has developed a loyal following and grown a culture of community that places a strong emphasis on giving back.

Recommended Videos

A Business Is Born

A customer wearing the mud black DIOP bucket hat.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Before launching his namesake clothing brand, Diop joined a graduate fellowship program that gave him exposure to working with start-ups and new businesses, and ultimately formed the backdrop to him kicking off his own project with a partner. “My friend Evan, who’s also a Venture for America fellow, came up to me at a barbecue and asked where I got the shirt I was wearing,” Diop tells The Manual. It was, of course, one of the shirts that his mom had made. Fried was curious about whether the two could make the shirt themselves. “That’s as close to an ‘aha’ moment there is,” says Diop, but the duo weren’t confident yet that they had a product to sell, not to mention making a business out of it. “After six months of making prototypes, we launched a crowdfunding campaign after the recommendation of a friend. With the success of the campaign, we left our jobs and moved to Detroit to join a start-up accelerator.” The label has just recently wrapped up its fifth collection.

The Diop Circle

Customers wearing Diop's bucket hats.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Central to the brand and its focus on community is The Diop Circle. “It wasn’t just important that people see themselves in our products but that they hear themselves in our brand,” Diop explains to The Manual of what the team gleaned early on during interviews with some of the company’s earliest customers. “We thought what better way than to work with our friends and family [and our] customers and partners to share what is meaningful to them.” Every week, Diop turns over its social media platforms to a member of their community, which allows them to relay a personal story.

“Every story is resonant in its own way. We deeply admire their courage and generosity in sharing these stories with us and feel very fortunate to have such a sensitive and engaged community regardless of their respective backgrounds. And while each of their perspectives might be different, we believe everyone is on a journey and Diop is right there with them. With each community story, we hope to share what we all have in common and celebrate the differences that make us unique.”

How Diop Is Giving Back

A customer wearing DIOP's kurama face mask.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on small businesses will be felt for years – if not generations – to come. Yet, despite being a start-up itself, Diop is making an enormous effort to give financial support to businesses in need, as well as providing assistance to other charitable organizations tackling existing social issues, like food and housing insecurity, and justice reform and civil rights. “We’re fortunate to work with very experienced partners locally in the metro area,” says Diop. So far, Diop has donated over $135,000 to more than 50 different initiatives. The money was raised by donating a portion of each sale of the company’s cloth masks.

“We often say it’s not the clothes but how they make you feel and what you do in them that matters. We try to demonstrate that by not only giving people a means to express themselves, but also [by supporting] them and [doing] work that’s even more important.”

How You Can Support

A customer wearing DIOP's wasis face mask.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

As Diop has shown through the work it has done, the brand cares about more than just its profits. With plenty of products to choose from (including shorts, bags, accessories and the brand’s flagship top), you can feel good knowing that your next fashion swerve is from a company that deeply cherishes community. And, deep within its DNA, it has an authentic story to boast.

Shop at Diop

This feature is part of our Brands Giving Back Series, where we’ll bring you all the latest news on brands that are giving back to the community, and how you can support by shopping online.

Bernd Fischer
Bernd Fischer is a freelance writer based in London covering style and grooming for The Manual. Before relocating to the…
Why United By Blue, An Outdoor Clothing Brand, Wants Your Local Waterway’s Trash
United by Blue cleanup

As you read this, two continent-sized expanses of plastic float placidly in the Pacific Ocean. Trash moves between them on an interstate-like current, and every day 38 million more pounds make its way into the saltwater. Fisheries are nosediving, beaches look more and more like garage sales instead of postcards, and Flipper was harpooned by a Japanese whaler. And yet against this seemingly hopeless situation, United By Blue
, a Philadelphia-based outdoor clothing brand, is baling water from a figurative sinking ship with a bigger and bigger bucket while simultaneously trying to recruit others to do the same before the whole thing goes down.
Meet The Founders of United Blue

Mike Cangi, with fellow cofounder Brian Linton, uses that far-looking, aspirational rhetoric that usually precedes a sex scandal. But the company’s moves have always been hyper local when examined with a close-enough lens. Linton spent his childhood in Southeast Asia, seeing firsthand the effect of polluted oceans and trash-strewn beaches, and Cangi grew up surfing Philadelphia's nearby Jersey Shore. With their first business, which preceded UBB, the pair donated five percent of the company’s profits to ocean conservancy, which vanished like a drop of water in, well, the ocean. “It was really hard to measure, to feel like we were making a difference,” Cangi says. “We wanted to get our hands dirty, literally and figuratively, and do our own good work.”
“We are all connected by the world’s water,” says cofounder and United By Blue brand director Mike Cangi, sounding very much like an aquatic version of a yoga instructor. “Every body of water is within our scope.”
So in 2010, the pair founded United By Blue. While the company’s desired effect of ocean conservancy may have been similar to the first business's iteration, its model was radically different. Rather than writing a check and adding a blurb to its website, the company instead adopted the cause in-house, internalizing waterway cleanup and preservation by hiring the personnel themselves. Of course, volunteers have been critical to its core mission — over 13,000 have given time in 300 events across the 48 lower States — and the company also funds large-scale cleanups executed by professionals with specialized equipment in remote and sometimes dangerous locations. (To date, its collective efforts have netted more than 3.5 million pounds of trash, and it continues to pledge that for every product sold, one pound of trash will be removed from local waterways.) But UBB’s initiatives start in its Philly office by employees whose job descriptions read more like Greenpeace than green space.
How Does Trash Get Into Our Water?

Read more
This All-American Boot Brand Prepares Men of Color to Step Out into the Great Outdoors
season three brand profile 0

Established in 1890, California’s Yosemite National Park has awed visitors for generations. Whether looking out from the Tunnel View, down from Glacier Point, or up from the meadow at El Capitan, its vistas are expansive, uniquely American. Yosemite is the proper definition of a national treasure. Jared Ray Johnson has never been.

Related Guides

Read more
How Fazl Socks Gives Back to Children’s Homes in India
brands giving back fazl socks 1

Much like the distinctive and whimsical prints of FAZL designs, Mike Gunn and Vanessa Tse's journey to start Fazl is a unique tale like no other. They met years ago on a fateful journey to volunteer at a children's home in North India. "I was here to learn about the children's resilience in these homes. These kids came from such traumatic backgrounds but in these homes, they could thrive and live fully," says Vanessa. She also emphasizes that Mike always had a desire to create a "social enterprise" that works on helping people in underprivileged countries. One trip to a Himachali market solidified both their dreams. Vanessa picked up a pair of patterned socks and said, "What if we could give back to children's homes and give fair wages to the Himachali women who make them?" From there came the creation of Fazl, a brand whose name comes from the Urdu word meaning 'grace.'

FAZL has always been one of a kind, with their primary mission aimed at providing fair wages for the women who make their products, as well as donating 50% of their net profits to children's homes in North India. But the journey to start their own company wasn't an easy one for co-founders Mike and Vanessa.

Read more