Merchants of garb, gifts, hair products and good cheer
By Bill Beene
Of the St. Louis American
When Russ Little encountered baldness and invented his own kinky afro hair replacement, he created more than a hair piece.
For his family, he and his wife Thelma created a legacy and a sizeable piece of the African-American dream.
Little’s invention became the catalyst for a family business in hair replacement that opened as a mail-order operation called Afro World in 1969.
Incorporating the business a year later, Little and his family first marketed his new product through popular African-American magazines Ebony and Essence and frequented trade shows, eventually creating a website, www.afroworld.com, as well.
Since the site was in St. Louis County, many local customers would bypass mail order and visit the Littles in person at their Normandy location.
The family noticed that many of those patrons wanted to buy something more while visiting the store.
Victor Little, their son, decided to buy and sell African garb.
“We wanted to buy from Africans and sell to Africans, but we also wanted to sell African goods to the general public,” said sibling Sheila Little-Forest, who has been working in the store since 1984, becoming president in 2000.
After procuring African garb, the family began stocking the store with items that included requests by patrons.
“You have to evolve into something different. We recognize what our customers ask for, and we find it,” Little-Forest said.
By 1995 Afro World had evolved into a retail division with a patron mailing list exceeding 100,000 names and crossing American shores.
Today, in addition to clothing and hair replacement (natural wigs, toupees, weaves), the store sells African jewelry, art, beauty products, greeting cards and unique gifts.
Little-Forest holds an MBA and is a graduate of the Coro Women in Leadership program at the Coro Leadership Center. She said that while her father passed on his astute business sense, the store didn’t always operate in the black, though mail-order profits grew steadily.
Little-Forest admits that in some cases selling traditional African goods, especially clothing, involves some coaching.
“We ask them not to buy at first, but try it on or start with a necklace or bracelet. After they try it on, we ask them to look at the garb as a piece of art and see if it becomes a part of them,” Little-Forest said.
“And it often does.”
Her family recipe for success is: “don’t overspend yourself, pay your bills on time and make good business decisions.”
Those ingredients, added to the family members’ personable dispositions and respect for customers, has sustained Afro World for more than 35 years.
Little-Forest doesn’t discount community support.
“There are people who just wanted to see us succeed, and there are people who just want to buy black, and it brings them pride to shop here,” Little-Forest said.
Tina Stanfield, who has patronized the store since 1991, is one such customer.
“They have something for the entire family, the prices are right, the service is great and they have a warm, knowledgeable staff,” Stanfield said.
Another customer, Janice Davis, who has modeled in Afro World fashion shows, likes the store’s uniqueness and continuing updates of its inventory.
Davis buys a lot of African garb and loves the Rose Buds hat line, not to mention the idea of supporting a black-owned family business.
Furthermore, she said items in the store are affordable because they have what she calls “black people’s credit”: layaway.
Most of all, Davis is impressed by the family’s friendliness. She referenced Little-Forrest offering a free Soulful Santa photo (starring Victor Little) for a little boy who didn’t have enough money sit on Santa’s lap and smile for a snapshot.
A gesture like that is its own success, for Little-Forrest, who said if she wasn’t running Afro World she’d be working in the community helping people in some form or another to make the world a better place.
“Success comes in different ways,” Little-Forrest said. “I don’t know if it has to be monetary, because I really like helping people.”
Afro World is located at 7276 Natural Bridge Rd. and is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Its web address is www.afroworld.com. Afro World will feature Soulful Santa until Christmas Eve and will begin its Kwanzaa celebration Monday.
