Beyond between with Robbie Jr. Kwapong

To hear Robbie Jr. Kwapong – the face of our pre-spring campaign – talk about football is a lovely experience. “Football is this big connective thing,” he tells us. “You go to a cage or a pitch in Paris or London, you start exploring the area around that cage. You get to know people.”
Our new collection is focused on the in-between – the transitions connecting one thing to another, where relationships and identities evolve or take root. Kwapong, a model and designer, has friends in Paris, London, Tokyo and beyond, so knows what it means to navigate between worlds.

This is what led him to found Famille Notoire, a global brand, project and movement that’s powered by community, and of course, centred on football. The Notoire Football Club organises kick-abouts in London and Paris, creating spaces for people to meet organically. “Football really accepts you the way you are,” he says. “If you truly embrace who you are.”
Kwapong was raised by Ghanaian parents in Eygelshoven, a small village in the Netherlands. “It's 10 minutes away from Germany. It's 30 minutes from Belgium,” he explains. “I think that's why I love it so much. It's this middle – this connecting piece.”

Growing up, his parents told him “Whenever you leave this house, you’re in the Netherlands. Whenever you enter this home, you’re back in Ghana.” Kwapong describes it as a “duality” that meant he visited Ghana every year until he was 18. Back in the Netherlands, he was an academy-level footballer, but an indecisive student.
“After college, I studied account management, but I did not know what that really meant,” he recalls. “I was stagnating. I didn't want to go to university. I just wanted to design stuff, be in the business of making.”

Architecture, which combined design with a parent-approved career, took his interest. He planned to study at the University of Tokyo, a course that required nine-months at a Japanese language school before he could enrol. It was in Tokyo that Kwapong had a chance encounter with creative director and influential streetwear figure, Brendon Babenzien.
"He was with his wife and daughter. I think they just thought I had a cool style, or that I was quite friendly,” he says of the meet. “Two minutes into the conversation, he was like, ‘I'm actually about to launch my business here, why don't you come work for me?’

“That's how my life became something else. I did not go to the University of Tokyo. And I've never studied architecture.”
Kwapong started working at the Tokyo store of Babenzien’s new label, before climbing the ranks and travelling to the US to train other retail staff. Inspired by surf, skate and music culture – the label taught him that style is more than the product you sell. Before Tokyo, retail and modelling, Kwapong discovered style through “faith, film and football” – the seeds from which Famille Notoire would eventually grow.

“When I was younger, I never had football jerseys. I would just play in whatever I had at home,” he explains. “Later on, I noticed that the things that I would wear while playing ball, people were like, ‘he’s really good. We should start wearing what he’s wearing.’
“That was the first time I encountered what it means to have style, and how your personality defines your style and what you do. That what you do is way more important than what you wear, and that what you do actually informs what you wear.”

When Kwapong plays football in London, he calls it ‘Nutmeg City’. In Paris, it’s ‘Jeu de Jambes’ (footwork). His is a game that prioritises style and flair over the final score. This is reflected in his love of Wes Anderson and French New Wave, “dreamy” cinema that lets you “travel mentally through film.”
The 25th Hour bag, a signature Famille Notoire piece, is named for a Spike Lee movie and inspired by Kwapong’s need for an extra hour in the day. He’s a person with movement on the mind who, above all else, is a good dude and a great hang. ‘Love thy neighbour’, a refrain across Famille Notoire’s output, seems like an apt maxim for his approach to life.

“My belief system is that everyone is created in the image of God, so you are as important as I am.
“Love thy neighbour just means appreciating every single person that comes your way. It's valuing them, respecting them, and loving them.”