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Since founding Brother Vellies in 2013, Aurora James has built a slow-fashion business that puts community empowerment first. Now she's persuading the rest of the industry to follow her lead.
CAPTION: BRIGHT IDEAS “I'm always going to fight for my company,” says the Brother Vellies founder, “and for people that haven't had the same opportunities.” IMAGE CREDIT: John Edmonds. Hair, Jawara; makeup, Fara Homidi. Details, see In This Issue. SITTINGS EDITOR: CARLOS NAZARIO. PRODUCED BY ALEXIS PIQUERAS AT AP STUDIO, INC. SET DESIGN, GERARD SANTOS.
Overseeing the annual sample sale at her Greenpoint, Brooklyn, boutique, Aurora James is in her element. The minimalist space has been transformed into a kind of ad hoc exhibition of the back catalog of Brother Vellies, James's accessories label, with glitter-flecked boots and glossy pink sandals spread out on concrete floors as a staff composed mostly of animated Gen-Z'ers unboxes more and more goodies. With shoes arranged in pastel semicircles and iridescent piles, the shop—replete with Hugo McCloud-designed columns and windows festooned with Cleo Wade poems—feels like a confectionery. James sees her handmade pieces as potential pick-me-ups, treats intended to lift the mood. “How can we use these amazing materials, vegetable dyes, and all the gifts Mother Nature gives us to make each other feel better?” she asks. “I want to see people happy again!”
Taking advantage of a mid-July sunny day, James directs our conversation outdoors to her preferred meeting place: the wooden bench beneath a linden tree and next to a bike rack outside the neighboring record store. The setting doesn't get more millennial Brooklynite, and James looks the part of an Instagram muse. Even with a bright-blue surgical mask obscuring her features, her waist-length hair and yellow linen short set draw the eyes of passersby. The whimsy, though, hides a steely side. “I'm a fighter,” she says between sips of water. “I started Brother Vellies at a flea market and fought my way into every scenario, tooth and nail. I'm always going to fight for my company—and for people that haven't had the same opportunities.”
Community is central to James's world-view, from her inner circle of Black creatives to her relationship with online fans to, well, the community she's surrounded by right here. At 36, she appears...