Holy Week tunics and elaborate costumes of the Málaga 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, no pattern, no design and no fabric that can resist 44-year-old Senegalese Demba Diop. She came to Spain in 2012 with the hope of pursuing sewing, a profession to which she had dedicated her life in her hometown of Dakar. With Spain in crisis, language difficulties and irregular documentation led him to give up his dream and work as a street vendor. Now he surprised the jury and became the winner of the competition for new designers on the Dmoda catwalk in Benalmádena (Málaga, 73,160 inhabitants), where he lives. “I couldn't believe it: sewing is my life,” he emphasizes from an apartment whose living room functions as an improvised workshop.
A little shy, smiling and very confident – when Diop reflects on his career, it is easy to understand that his abilities are no coincidence. He was seven or eight years old when he left school and began helping his uncle, who ran a sewing workshop. “I lived with him and he sent me to buy needles, thread and things like that. Little by little I got to know the job,” he explains in Spanish, which he can almost barely understand. During his eleven-year apprenticeship he absorbed all the secrets. She sewed, cut, designed, made patterns and understood the inner workings of the machines she worked with. Eventually he decided to open his own business where he also taught other young people. Until his brother traveled to Benalmádena in 2009 and fell in love with this distant city during long Skype conversations. He was convinced that he wanted to be there too. Three years later, he packed his suitcase, boarded a plane for a 3,000-kilometer journey and the two met again. He joined the colony of 200 Senegalese in the city of Malaga, in whose province more than 2,124 compatriots are registered, according to the National Statistics Institute.
Demba Diop with a group of models at a fashion show in Benalmadena.
She came with the dream of opening a sewing business, but reality became an insurmountable wall. He had few resources, he was in a crisis country that had just asked for a financial bailout, and the bureaucratic problems with his documentation made it even more difficult. When his tourist visa expired, he found himself in an irregular administrative situation. He thought about going home. “My brother encouraged me to stay,” he remembers. He started selling on the street. Endless walks selling sunglasses and gradually meeting a few people. Thanks to one of them, he ended up in the workshop of María Doménech, a designer who had just closed her shop in the city of Málaga to open a simpler business in a small shop in Torremolinos. “Needed help. I was desperate and couldn’t find anyone,” says the now 71-year-old woman. “Until a friend told me that this man was very good at sewing and I told her to introduce myself to him,” she says.
The first thing he did was try it. He asked him to make a tunic for a brotherhood, something he had never done before. “When I saw him turn on the sewing machine, I saw that he could sew, but then I was surprised: what he was doing was spectacular, a luxury job,” emphasizes Doménech. With the job offer and the support of the designer's management, Diop managed to regulate her documentation. With the support of the El Rico Brotherhood of Málaga, he was able to bring his wife and then only son with him. During the nearly seven years he worked with María, he made dalmatics for Holy Week processions, dressed Carnival troupes, and made elegant men's costumes and colorful party dresses for women.
“An interesting opportunity”
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Shortly before the pandemic, the woman retired and gave him one of her machines, a semi-industrial Alfa, so that her former employee could continue the profession. He bought another one and a serger. Many of his customers were enthusiastic about his way of working, but gradually he became detached from the activity, which no longer allowed him to support his family. During the pandemic, she sewed gowns and masks, then returned to street vending and then ventured into hospitality. First in the Italian restaurant Metro and then in the Kaleido bar in Puerto Marina, always washing up. He was there when, in early 2023, the Benalmádena Association of Merchants and Businessmen decided to collect CVs from African street vendors. “There are many sectors where there is a shortage of personnel and we wanted to see if some of them fit into the positions where workers are needed,” recalls the company's president, Rosa Mary González. Most had some training. There were farmers, bricklayers, hoteliers. “The CV that surprised me the most was that of a seamstress,” says González.
Diop sews one of her garments in her home workshop. Garcia-Santos (El País)
At the end of the year, the association held a fashion designer competition and the businesswoman remembered Demba Diop's profile. “I called him and encouraged him to take part, it seemed like an interesting opportunity for him.” The African initially thought it was a “Master of Sewing” style competition and declined the offer as he was not trusted. Then his friend Djibril Balde explained to him that it was just a competition in which he had to prepare a small collection for a group of models. Only 15 days remained until the parade. I agree. “It was crazy, but I did it,” says Diop. She prepared five women's wears and two men's wears for the show held on December 6 at Alay Hotel, which was attended by seven other entrepreneurs. His designs, the flawless workmanship and the way he combined the African with the European impressed the jury. He won and took away one of the joys of his life.
Now this tailor has found his passion for design and sewing again. She wants to open her fashion business but is also considering returning to the hotel industry as she lacks the funds to invest and also insists on the importance of supporting her family. In addition to his wife, who braids braids on the beach every summer while wearing suits made by her husband, he has a three-year-old son, Saliou, and another 18-year-old son, Pape Abdoulaye, who is studying computer engineering at the Complutense University of Madrid , after finishing 14th in selectivity. “I don't know what I will do, although my dream is still to open my own workshop, sew and also teach other compatriots who are already here. Or at least I would like to work for a designer,” concludes Diop, who is already thinking about the clothes she will present next year for the show in which she will participate with professional brands.
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