Aurora James

Aurora James is a Canadian creative director, activist, and fashion designer. In 2013, she founded the fashion label Brother Vellies, with the goal of keeping traditional African design practices and techniques alive. In 2020, James founded the 15 Percent Pledge as a non-profit organization to support Black-owned businesses.
Early life.
James was born to a Ghanaian father and Canadian mother in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Her childhood was split between Canada and Jamaica. In 2010, James relocated to Los Angeles and later moved to New York City.
Career and Brand.
After traveling across Africa in 2011, James spent the next few years experimenting with design, testing designs at local markets in New York and working with various artisan groups. She then launched Brother Vellies in January 2013, started with $3,500 in savings, with the goal of preserving the shoemaking craft across Southern Africa, as well as creating new jobs for artisans in the workshops that she partnered with. The first formal Brother Vellies collection was produced for the Spring 2014 season and was created entirely with shoemakers in South Africa. James expanded to working in other countries within Africa and beyond to continue producing authentic, modern-day desert boots, shoes, slippers, and sandals. James travels to Africa every few months to work with local artisans and to further develop Brother Vellies’ collections.
In 2015, James began producing handbags for Brother Vellies, the same year she won the CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund prize.
In 2020, James was featured on the cover of the September issue of "Vogue" magazine, in a portrait by Jordan Casteel.
Brother Vellies has been worn by activists, celebrities, artists and musicians, including Beyoncé, Solange Knowles, Nicki Minaj, and Elaine Welteroth.
The 15 Percent Pledge.
In 2020, in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and the wave of Black Lives Matter activism that followed, James launched an initiative called the 15 Percent Pledge, with an Instagram post on May 29 that "Vogue" writes "immediately went viral and resulted in an outpouring of interest." The 15 Percent Pledge Foundation was then created as a non-profit organization to urge major retailers to commit 15 percent of their shelf-space to Black-owned businesses. The Foundation offers large corporations accountability and strategy suggestions as well as consulting services. The goal of the foundation is to advocate on behalf of Black-owned businesses and to build generational wealth in black communities; according to its website, the initiative "was born from seeing multiple acts of social injustice and police brutality in the United States, with a lack of corporate accountability for the systemic issues at play."
"TIME Magazine" writes that James wanted to "find a way that companies could make a tangible change," and "from there, the 15 Percent Pledge was born." Cam Wolf writes in "GQ magazine" that "James is careful to note that the 15 Percent Pledge is not the only solution," and that James said, "This is a really tough time for everyone, and people shopping is by no means going to ease the pain of the lives that we have lost...There are also a lot of other things that we need people to be doing, like donating to bail funds."