Aurora James

Aurora James had her first internship at the age 15 at Next Models in Toronto. After high-school, she studied fashion for a year at Ryerson University before switching her major to journalism and taking a job with Jeanne Beker at Fashion Television. The experience of watching the passion and candidness that Jeanne Beker was able to get out of her interviews and off-the-record moments affirmed James' desire to express herself as a designer. James first traveled to Morocco in 2011 and spent two years working with numerous artisans and experimenting with local materials. James founded Brother Vellies in 2013 with two specific goals in mind: to introduce her favorite traditional African footwear to the rest of the world and to create and sustain artisans in Africa. Handmade in South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Morocco, Brother Vellies shoes maintain the spirit and durability of their ancestral counterparts. While the company offers a variety of styles-including boots and sandals-it was built on the enthusiastic reception of its first model, the velskoen. Relatively unknown outside of Africa, traditional velskoen (pronounced "fell-skoon," and known colloquially as "vellies") paved the way for the modern-day desert boot. James launched her first collection in the spring of 2014 while working with shoemakers in South Africa. Later that same year, she expanded to working in Kenya and Morocco, and by the fall of 2014 James was able to open her first retail store and office in Manhattan. In the spring of 2015, James partnered with the United Nations as part of the Ethical Fashion Initiative, which helped her secure living wages and streamlined productions facilities for her artisans in Kenya. At the company's workshop in Kenya, a small group of men and women assemble a few dozen pairs of shoes a day by hand, using techniques refined over multiple generations. All of the Brother Vellies workshops are open spaces that welcome artisans of all genders, sexual orientation, backgrounds, and tribes. James now finds herself traveling throughout Africa every couple of months to work with the local artisans, experience the diverse culture of the continent, and unearth new inspirations to further develop her brand.