Name: Barcelona migrants stitch new lives through upcycled fashion
Uploaded: 2025-12-11T18:02:16.559Z
Duration: 2 min 18 s
Description: In Barcelona, a migrant worker cooperative is helping undocumented migrants get out of black market jobs and into the formal economy, through an upcycled fashion collaboration with a local designer.

In Barcelona, a migrant worker cooperative is helping undocumented migrants get out of black market jobs and into the formal economy, through an upcycled fashion collaboration with a local designer.

Barcelona

In Barcelona, a group of former migrant street vendors have established Top Manta, a cooperative that produces upcycled fashion designed by Tania Marcial. Many of these migrants, previously undocumented and working in the informal sector, now gain work experience and legal documentation through the cooperative’s contracts.

Spain’s recent migration increase has contributed to the country’s population and economy, though many migrants remain in legal limbo and resort to black market jobs. Top Manta, founded after a fatal police raid in 2015, has helped over 200 migrants transition into formal employment, while also bringing valuable sewing skills to Spain’s fashion industry.

Barcelona migrants stitch new lives through upcycled fashion

In a sunlit studio in Spain's Barcelona, models pose in clothing made by migrants who once spent their days avoiding police to hawk counterfeit goods on the city's streets. Now with Top Manta, a cooperative of former street vendors, they cut, stitch and screen print a 10-piece upcycled capsule wardrobe created by local designer Tania Marcial. Gibi Gabigag is from Senegal. He was one of the undocumented migrant street sellers. Now, he says, Top Manta has given him direction and purpose. It's taught me what I need for my life, he says. Spain's migration boom in recent years has bolstered its dwindling population and economy. Last year, around 6% of them were irregular migrants, mostly arriving from West Africa via the Canary Islands in rickety wooden boats or dinghies. There are roughly 700,000 migrants in Spain presently in legal limbo, Catholic charity Caritas estimates. They can't work formally or gather the paperwork needed to secure residency, so many end up with black market jobs. Lamine Sarr and Aziz Faye also came from Senegal and worked as hawkers nearly 20 years ago. They started a street vendors' union after a police raid in 2015 led to the death of a migrant hawker. That then became Top Manta. Sarr says Top Manta's work contracts offer migrants a foothold in formal life. I suppose before, we were nobody because nobody respected us, nobody knew us well. Since we started this fight, we have brought to the light the administrative obstacles imposed on us and the difficulties we experience. We have gained a position in this society because we have been able to form a union, an association, create a cooperative that has helped more than 200 people get off the streets, obtain documentation, have their rights and apply for any job. But it's not just a one-way street, according to the designer Maciel. She says the migrant workers have a lot of the know-how lacking in Spain, where fast fashion dominates. There have been a few things as we used to 60 years ago when we had tailors, she said, fusing their sewing techniques with design ideas and a vision of what people want to buy here can be a very good combination.

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