Initiatives of theHamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft
As a salesman, André Cramer has seen hundreds of clothing shops from the inside. Then he decided to open one himself: La Tribune Noire, a shop for products from Black-Owned Businesses. The pop-up concept found its first home through the Frei_Fläche programme on the Alter Wall - and soon it grew enormously.
André Cramer enters the former Karstadt Sports on Mönckebergstraße, now known as Jupiter, as if it were his home. He shakes hands with the doorman and greets the caretaker. In a way, he will soon be moving in - but more on that later. Because even before the lift to the roof terrace starts, he takes us on the wild road trip that is his life. "What few people know: I'm actually something like the last refugee from the GDR and the first visitor to a united Germany," he begins, as the spring light falls through the windows of the department stores'. On 9 November 1989, the trained hairdresser and three friends fled to the West via Czechoslovakia in a Trabi - the GDR state was already in the process of disintegration and Günter Schabowski's speech on the fall of the Berlin Wall famously followed on the same day.
In addition to petrol vouchers and a cassette recorder, Cramer had entrepreneurial spirit in his luggage: he earned his first Deutschmark by letting West Germans drive a Trabi around the market square in Saarbrücken. This was followed by a career as sales manager at s.Oliver, including an excursion to India to help set up the fashion company's first two local stores there. This reminded him of the time of the early shopping centres in the east of the 90s - "retail gold-digger times", he calls them.
So he knows all about the appealing design of large retail spaces. And after years of being an employee, a plan emerges. "I've been writing the business plan for a concept store filled with products from Black-Owned Brands for a year now. The only thing I'm still missing is the right shop space" - with these words, Cramer contacted the Frei_Fläche programme a few days after its public launch. "We then looked for free space together," recalls the energetic entrepreneur.
"I've been thinking: Should I set up in Berlin or Hamburg? And today I have to say: the creative society alone gives me so many opportunities here that I wouldn't have had in Berlin."
And successfully so: the pop-up concept called La Tribune Noire will open its doors on the prestigious Alter Wall on 16 December 2021 for around a year. "I thought about it: Do I set up in Berlin or Hamburg? And today I have to say: the creative society alone gives me so many opportunities here that I wouldn't have had in Berlin." Until the end of 2022, André Cramer, whose father is from Senegal, will occupy the shop space a few metres from the town hall and create a meeting place for black entrepreneurs, tourists and curious shoppers.
"If you go to a fashion fair as a black person in Europe, you belong to a minority. You see each other, talk to each other and at some point you go out to eat together - and then you know each other."
We accompany André Cramer for a few kilometres on his journey, jump into the car at Jupiter and come to a halt in front of Afrotopia in Barmbek: A former church, brick, like almost the entire neighbourhood. He moved into the "Culture & Innovation Centre by Black People for Black People" with La Tribune Noire back in May 2021, before the time in Alter Wall. His office should actually be in the listed church tower. His gaze wanders up the façade. "The view over the whole of Hamburg is fantastic. But I'd have to lug all my products up there just to carry them down again," Cramer explains pragmatically, showing us the small workspace he has chosen instead. He ships his products from here - because La Tribune Noire is also an online shop.
And where will the journey take him next? Two Kreativ Gesellschaft programmes are accompanying André Cramer on his journey: he is currently developing his concept further at the Creative Business Academy. This is also where he meets some of his contacts, such as the makers of Little Ashé, who are also taking part with diversity children's puppets. And then it becomes clear why he knows the door guard at Jupiter by his first name: in spring 2023, he will move into the ground floor of the department stores' with La Tribune Noire and a wealth of new ideas. Although Cramer says he has respect for the size of the space, he sees the project primarily as an opportunity - with a coffee bar, designer lab and showroom boxes like the ones he saw at Bikini Berlin. This is typical of the busy man in the orange cap: on his way, he keeps looking to the right and left for inspiration. In future on Mönckebergstraße.
With minimalist shelves and clothes racks, he presents the high-quality products available to buy at La Tribune Noire. Six hours. It shouldn't take longer than that to set up his shop system. Exceptional fashion, aromatic coffee, unusual interiors - Cramer doesn't have to search long for the brands that fill his shop space. He started out with 16 creative people, who also helped to design the supporting programme at Alter Wall. He now works with 64 brands, most of which, as he says, approached him. "My concept is unique in this form in Germany and word has spread quickly," says André Cramer. But he also brought his own network with him: "If you go to a fashion fair as a black person in Europe, you belong to a minority. You see each other, talk to each other and at some point you have lunch together - and then you know each other."
André Cramer leaves his home country at the age of 19. This was followed by Saarbrücken, chosen at random, "simply as far away from the border as possible", as well as stints in the fashion industry in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Regensburg and finally Hamburg. What does the entrepreneur think when he walks along Mönckebergstraße today and sees the many adverts, which now also feature many people of colour?
of colour are now depicted? "As a 12-year-old, I would have been happy to see these faces of black people in the city, because it simply didn't exist back then. But I would prefer it even more if it wasn't the model who was Black nowadays, but the product manager of such a company." With this mixture of pragmatism and idealism, he founded La Tribune Noire, a shop concept with a unique selling point in Germany. And on Labour Day - fitting, the entrepreneur thinks.
