"AN AFRO BRAND OUT TO CONQUER THE WORLD..."

WROTE "LE MONDE"* OF THE MIX OF AFRICAN MARKET SIGNS, WAX PRINT DESIGNS, POP ART AND COMICS 

*Considered the most influential French daily. 

Youssouf Fofana, a child of the northern outskirts, created 

Maison Château Rouge.

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His poster promoted the establishments prominent at its founding (in 2016)...

Maison Château Rouge

40bis rue Myrha

He used African market signs and comics to create a new art. 

Ibrahim, vendor

The client in the black t-shirt spoke English with a foreign accent. Maison Château Rouge corresponds to what Chanel used to be, luxury unique to Paris. 

 

Kids scribbled on the panel that replaced a broken window. 

Two months later it was still there: 

Perhaps it was left on purpose.

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African market signs: Until Fofana made them his springboard, one came across them by luck alone.

• "My parents brought it back from a trip to Africa," says the doctor whose office this sign adorns: 

• "These canes were part of the assortment of a collector who had lived in Africa," an antiquarian explains:

La Galerie Jantzen 

18 rue de Beaune,7th

• "I found them when cleaning out an attic in Alsace," the founder of the bookstore across the street from Maison Château Rouge acknowledges:

La Régulière

43 rue Myrha

To my knowledge, aside from his shop such signs appear by calculation only in a restaurant whose decor Fofana created:

Another Soul Restaurant in Paris (Baba Soul, 10th),

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Unusual ads: Instead of showing the product in a void, it is part of the city. 

          Newsletter 

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Promoted by the Monoprix chain,

Maison Château Rouge brought

African popular art into the mainstream.

*    *    *

Next,

Congolese wax prints, Ethiopian sneakers 

and an African concept store