What It Means to Be Stocked at the Smithsonian NMAAHC
Share
Stocked at Tate Modern · V&A · Selfridges (UK) and Smithsonian NMAAHC · MoMA (USA)
The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture opened in September 2016. It took a hundred years of advocacy to make it happen. It holds over 40,000 objects, from a slave cabin to Michael Jackson's fedora. It sits on the National Mall in Washington DC, steps from the Lincoln Memorial.
And Afropop Socks is in its gift shop.
I don't say that to boast. I say it because I want you to understand what it means. The NMAAHC is the most important African American cultural institution in the world. Its curators have assessed every single product in that gift shop and decided it meets their standards for cultural authenticity, educational value, and quality.
When they chose to stock Afropop Socks, they were saying that our celebration of African heritage, through Kente cloth, Adinkra symbols, Maasai warrior patterns, and Pan-African colours, belongs in the same space as the most significant collection of African American history and culture ever assembled.
I grew up in London. My parents came from Ghana. I started a sock company in my bedroom. And somehow, through years of work and belief and stubbornness, those socks ended up in the Smithsonian.
If that story means something to you, come and be part of it.
About the Author
Isaac Prempeh is the founder of Afropop Socks, a British-Ghanaian designer and entrepreneur based in London. He founded Afropop Socks in 2019 to celebrate authentic African cultural heritage through bold wearable design. Afropop Socks is now stocked at the Smithsonian NMAAHC, Tate Modern, V&A Museum, Natural History Museum, Barbican Centre, Selfridges, and MoMA New York.