October is Black History Month in the UK, and it is a good moment to explain something our customers often ask about: why a salon in Mortlake makes underwear covered in West African symbols. The short answer is that Hector's is a Black-owned business, and the Adinkra range is where our heritage shows most clearly. The longer answer starts in Ghana.

What Adinkra symbols are

Adinkra symbols come from the Akan people of Ghana. Each one stands for an idea, a proverb or a value: wisdom, strength, humility, unity, the importance of the past. They are a visual language, and they were never meant to be purely decorative.

Traditionally, Adinkra symbols were stamped onto cloth using stamps carved from calabash gourds and a dye made from tree bark. The cloth was worn at important occasions, and the symbols a person chose said something about the moment and about them. The meaning was the point.

Today you will see Adinkra symbols far beyond Ghana: on buildings, gates and jewellery, in tattoos, in art and increasingly in fashion. They have become one of the most recognisable visual traditions to come out of West Africa.

A few symbols worth knowing

There are well over a hundred Adinkra symbols. Three of the most widely known give a sense of the range.

Sankofa is usually translated as "go back and fetch it". It means it is not wrong to go back for what you have left behind: learn from the past in order to build the future. It is drawn either as a bird walking forward with its head turned back, often carrying an egg, or as a stylised heart.

Gye Nyame, often translated as "except for God", expresses the supremacy of God and is one of the most widely used Adinkra symbols in Ghana.

Dwennimmen, the ram's horns, stands for humility together with strength.

Why we named a range after Sankofa

Of all the symbols, Sankofa sums up what our underwear is about. Carrying something from the past into everyday life, not in a museum case but in something you put on every morning.

Our Sankofa Freedom Pants are named after it: loose, baggy-boxer-style underwear with a gold Sankofa side print and a gold embroidered waistband, comfortable under trousers or on their own at the beach or poolside. Our wider Adinkra range takes the visual language of the symbols into cotton pouch boxers with a snug fit. Every design is our own, and you won't find it on the high street.

A Black-owned business in Mortlake since 2003

Hector Obeng opened Hector's Global Hair with Zeal on Lower Richmond Road in February 2003, after twelve years at Millers in East Sheen. More than two decades later it is still one salon, one address and one team, and along the way it has won national titles for braids and extensions, bridal hair and colour, and an award from Great Lengths.

The underwear grew out of the same business. It is designed by us, sold in the salon and online, and made with the same principle we apply in the chair: do it properly, and make it mean something.

Wearing heritage every day

There is something quietly powerful about symbolism you carry privately. Nobody sees your underwear, but you know what is printed on it. For a lot of our customers, that is exactly the appeal: a daily reminder of where they come from, worn close.

It is also why Adinkra underwear has become one of our most popular gifts, particularly in October. A gift that carries a meaning lands differently from one that doesn't.

Comfort first

None of this would matter if the underwear weren't comfortable. Our Adinkra boxers are cotton, cut for a snug fit, with a contoured front pouch that keeps everything supported and apart from the thighs, which means less adjusting and less chafing through the day. Our size guide covers waist sizes from 28 to 38 inches if you are unsure which to choose.

Find the range

You can shop the Adinkra and Sankofa ranges online with UK delivery, or see them in person at 73 Lower Richmond Road, Mortlake, London SW14 7HJ. If you are visiting the salon anyway, ask the team to show you the full range. This Black History Month, we are proud to be able to say it: every piece is designed by a Black-owned London business.