IN BARCELONA – Lamine Sarr used to sell fake Barcelona football shirts on the streets in a practise known as “top manta” after the plastic sheets which migrants use to show off fake wares. Today, his world has come full circle. Now he helps run a fashion label known as Top Manta, which is designed to provide work for the migrants to Spain and get them off the streets.
The association, which is run by former manteros as they are known in Spanish, produces regular collections of new lines much like brands including Zara or Mango. But the difference is Top Manta also hopes to educate the public about the world from which many of these migrants have come. Instead of shiny high street shops, Top Manta operates out of a small store in a side street in Barcelona ’s tough Raval district.
This is home to migrants from Africa and many parts of Asia. Halal butchers stand side by side with the best Indian restaurants in the city. Inside Top Manta, the shelves are full of brightly coloured designs with slogans like, “Legal Clothing”, “Illegal People”, or “Fake System, True Clothes” and “Salon de Coiffure Top Manta Cutting Prejudices Since 2015”.
One top resembles the blue and purple of an FC Barcelona shirt but instead of the local football team, it reads: “Top Manta”. For Mr Sarr, 41, and many others, it has been a long road to get to this stage. In 2006, he left his native Senegal and spent seven tense days in kayak with 98 other people crossing the Atlantic .