Perfume on display at Little Africa Village
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Paris celebrated Paris Perfume Week last month (April 9–11, 2026).

Little Africa Village participated in that celebration in a unique and powerful way.

In collaboration with The Colors, a leading multicultural beauty consultancy, it unveiled a new space dedicated to Afro-diasporic niche perfumery "where storytelling takes precedence over raw materials."

Little Africa Village sitting room with perfume display
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On April 11, Proprietor Jacqueline Ngo Mpii welcomed the general public to a panel discussion in English during which she, Haweya Mohamed, co-founder of The Colors, and Kimberly Waters, founder of Muse Experience, addressed questions about who gets to tell the stories of fragrance today and from which territories these narratives emerge.

That evening, Little Africa Village and The Colors co-hosted a cocktail to close out Paris Perfume week with the support of Maison Noire Américaine.

I first learned of their collaboration last December during an impromptu visit to the concept store and regretted that I could not attend the events programmed for Paris Perfume Week.

Two days ago, I brought a group of art students from Virginia State University to Little Africa Village as part of ETBP's Spirit of Africa tour and was delighted to have Ngo Mpii tell the students about this innovative and groundbreaking initiative—the first haute perfumery dedicated to Afro-diasporic cultures.

Virginia State University art students at Little Africa Village
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Why is this historic?

Because until now, African and Afro-descendant cultures were often only considered by traditional perfumery as "sources of inspiration" or "raw materials" (vanilla, incense, sandalwood).

With The Colors, the paradigm is reversed: 

"We don't just sell perfume. We make visible imaginaries that have long been kept on the margins while demanding the highest level of quality and sophistication."

Perfume display
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Through its niche perfumery label, The Colors Vanguard, The Colors highlights brands selected for the singularity of their vision and the central place occupied by Black cultures in their creation, and supports them in their strategic development and their international visibility. Every fragrance selected is a work of art telling a story of geography or emotion from the diaspora.

Among the brands available are Scent of Africa (Accra, Ghana) by Tanal Ghandour, Maison Berliner (Paris, France) by Mahamodou Dramé, and Harlem Perfume Co. (New York, NY) by Teri Johnson.

Scent of Africa
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Maison Berliner
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Harlem Perfume Co.
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By moving to Little Africa Village, the perfumery is anchoring itself in a place where Afro-diasporic excellence is already the norm.  Its overall objective is to build a repertoire of new olfactory metaphors reflecting the plurality of heritage of the diaspora.