Canadian Bart Sullivan is co-founder of kila kitu, a clothing company based out of Kenya. Here he tells us about how the company came to be and the popularity of the Kenyan cowboy
Interview by Victoria Ford
Bart, where are you right now? I'm living in Tanzania , in a city called Dar es Salaam, which means 'the port of peace'.
What's it like living there? There are definitely privileges that come with being here. Africa's a huge place and there's a lot of brilliant young people and exciting things happening. The music is awesome. There's a kind of music called Bongo Flava and they mix traditional Tanzanian melodies with hip hop and reggae. I'm a little exhausted because I feel like there's so much stuff to do.
And what took you there? I went over to Kenya originally to do some development work. It was a really cool experience but it made me realise that trying to help people with 'solutions' is a tall order and I left after a year. But then for about three years I was longing to go back. So I showed up in Kenya with my backpack and a laptop, and I was open to ideas.
How did you get the idea for the clothing line? I happened to have this cowboy shirt I had just bought - a classic 1970's Stetson. It was white, and white shirts don't do too well in Africa, they get dirty really fast.
I was watching the markets, people selling their wares, and I thought, maybe I can find a tailor who can make an exact replica of my shirt in another colour. I went to a mitumba market, which is Kenyan slang for second-hand clothes, and I found some jeans and a blue shirt that were kind of cool, and some other things. They cost me 50 cents or something. I took them all to a tailor and asked if he could the make the cowboy shirt; he looked at me and said, "come back tomorrow."
When I came back the next day and he had made a perfect replica of the shirt, I knew I was onto something, so I brought him more fabric and he did it again and again. And this is how our company started.
We call it Kila Kitu, which in Swahili means 'everything'. We go to the markets, pick the things we like, clean them up and make new clothes out of them.
Your first shirt design is called the Kenyan Cowboy. Would you say it's more a Kenyan style or an imitation of an American style? What's fun about it is that it's western in its form but African in the pattern that it uses - it's got an African flair to it. At first I just needed new clothes and it was functional, I think that's what's African about it; people in Africa are really good at coming up with low cost solutions.
There's a story about the name Kenyan Cowboy. It's actually a slang term for British people from colonial days who stayed behind after Kenyan independence, working on farms or running businesses or whatever.
Do you think the shirts will be most attractive to people from the west? Not at all. Most of the people who are interested in them in Kenya are African and they love the name and the concept. Nowadays a lot of politicians and public figures in Kenya wear cowboy hats or boots or big buckles.
It's funny, these guys go around in their cars trying to win votes and but they're wearing cowboy clothes. That has nothing to do with why I chose a western style but they just seem to like it, so it's been successful.
Where will you be selling your clothing? We're going to send some to Canada and then people will be able to buy them online because it's easier to ship from there. We're also going to open a shop here.
Would describe your clothing as ethical or just fashionable? What I've found is that the more I try to label it as ethical, the further it gets from its purely creative beginnings. For a little while I was trying to say, "this is great because it's creating jobs and recycling things," but then somebody challenged me and said, "yeah that's great, but you're buying the cool fabrics from the only place where the poorest of the poor in Africa can afford to buy clothes, and you're taking it to make your art forms. And sure it's making jobs but people need affordable clothes."
It made me think about what I'm placing importance on: that it's ethical and that's somehow trendy? Or do I really want to just do something different?
So to answer the question, it's fashionable but I'm asking a lot of questions along the way. Like when we make some money, what will we do with it? Well, where my tailor lives the water's not clean and the streets are littered, so the quality of life for him and his kids is not great in terms of sanitation.
So one thing we're going to do is start another business where we hire local young people to do some cleanup around the area. If the business succeeds, so does the community cleanup operation.
You say 'we', who else is involved? So far I've got a business partner, two tailors, a designer who does the labels, a team of web designers and now I'm setting up a team to take over the website. There are a lot of people who are involved in little parts of it. 
Buy shirts online from December 1, 2008
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