From street vending to fashion: “Sewing is my life”

Holy Week tunics and elaborate costumes from the Malaga carnival troupes have passed through their hands. Also men's suits or women's party dresses. And jackets, pants, aprons and t-shirts. There is no cut, pattern, design or fabric that can resist 44-year-old Senegalese Demba Diop. He arrived in Spain in 2012 with the hope of devoting himself to sewing, a profession to which he had dedicated his life in his hometown, Dakar. A Spain in crisis, his difficulties with the language and his irregular documentation prompted him to abandon his dream and work as a street vendor. Now, he has surprised the jury to become the winner of the contest for new designers on the Dmoda catwalk, in Benalmádena (Málaga, 73,160 inhabitants), where he resides. “I couldn't believe it: sewing is my life,” he says from an apartment whose living room serves as an improvised workshop.

Somewhat shy, smiling and very self-confident, when Diop reviews his career it is easy to understand that his skill is no coincidence. He was seven or eight years old when he left school and started helping his uncle, who ran a sewing workshop. “I lived with him and he sent me to buy needles, thread, things like that. Little by little I got to know the profession,” he explains in Spanish with which he communicates almost by groping. He soaked up all the secrets during the 11 years that he served as an apprentice. He sewed, cut, designed, made patterns and understood the ins and outs of the machines he worked with. Finally he decided to open his own business, where he also taught other young people. Until in 2009 his brother traveled to Benalmádena and during the long conversations they had on Skype he fell in love with that distant city. He became convinced that he wanted to be there too. Three years later he packed his suitcase, got on a plane to travel 3,000 kilometers and they both met again. He joined the colony of 200 Senegalese in the town of Malaga, in whose province there are more than 2,124 compatriots registered, according to the National Institute of Statistics.

She arrived with the dream of opening a sewing business, but reality became an insurmountable wall. He barely had resources, he found himself in a country in crisis that had just asked for a financial bailout and the bureaucratic problems with his documentation made it more difficult. When his tourist visa expired he was left in an irregular administrative situation. He thought about returning home. “My brother encouraged me to stay,” he recalls. He launched into street vending. Endless walks selling sunglasses in which, little by little, he met some people. Thanks to one of them he arrived at the workshop of María Doménech, a designer who had just closed her business in the city of Málaga to open a simpler one in a small store in Torremolinos. “Needed help. She was desperate and couldn't find anyone,” says the woman, now 71 years old. “Until a friend told me that this man sewed very well, so I told her to introduce me to him,” she says.

The first thing he did was try it. She asked him to make a tunic for a brotherhood, something he had never done. “When I saw him turn on the sewing machine, I saw that he knew how to sew, but then I was surprised: what he did was spectacular, a luxury job,” Doménech highlights. With the job offer and the support of the designer's management, Diop managed to regularize his documentation. With the support of the El Rico brotherhood of Malaga, he was able to bring his wife and his then only son. During the nearly seven years that he worked with María he made dalmatics for Holy Week processions, dressed carnival troupes, made elegant men's costumes and colorful party dresses for women.

“An interesting opportunity”

Just before the pandemic, the woman retired and gave him one of her machines, a semi-industrial Alfa, so that her former employee could continue with the profession. He bought another one and a serger. He kept many of his clients delighted with the way he worked, but little by little he became detached from the activity, which did not allow him to support his family. During the pandemic he sewed gowns and masks, then returned to street vending and then made the leap into hospitality. First at the Italian restaurant Metro and then at the Kaleido bar, in Puerto Marina, always washing dishes. He was there when, at the beginning of 2023, the Association of Merchants and Businessmen of Benalmádena decided to collect resumes among African street vendors. “There are many sectors lacking personnel and we wanted to see if some of them could fit into the positions where manpower is needed,” recalls the president of the entity, Rosa Mary González. Most had training. There were farmers, bricklayers, hoteliers. “The resume that surprised me the most was that of a seamstress,” says González.

At the end of the year the association promoted a fashion designer contest and the businesswoman remembered that profile, which was of Demba Diop. “I called him and encouraged him to participate, it seemed like an interesting opportunity for him.” The African first thought that it was a contest in the style of Sewing masters and he declined the offer, he didn't dare. Then his friend Djibril Balde explained to him that it was simply a contest in which he would have to prepare a small collection for a group of models to wear. There were only 15 days left until the parade. He accepted. “It was crazy, but I did it,” Diop certifies. He prepared five women's clothes and two men's clothes for the show, held on December 6 at the Alay hotel, where seven other entrepreneurs participated. His designs, the impeccable finishes and the way in which he fused the African with the European dazzled the jury. She won and took one of the joys of his life.

Now this tailor has recovered his enthusiasm for design and sewing. He wants to open his fashion business, but he also cons
iders returning to the hospitality industry because he lacks the resources to make an investment and, in addition, he insists on the importance of supporting his family. In addition to his wife — who braids her hair every summer on the seafront dressed in suits that her husband makes — he has a three-year-old son, Saliou, and another 18-year-old son, Pape Abdoulaye, who studies Computer Engineering at the Complutense University of Madrid after touching 14th in the selectivity. “I don't know what I will do, although my dream is still to open my own workshop, to sew and also teach other compatriots who are already here. Or, at least, I would love to work for a designer,” concludes Diop, who is already thinking about the garments that he will present next year for the show, in which he will participate with professional brands.

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