About
Kikobana means keep it, keep on.
We are a small running brand in Seoul. We make five things, we sell them at a price that lets us pay properly for them, and a fixed share of every order goes to the people this started with.
It started a long way from a running shop.
Kikobana grew out of time spent with young single mothers and their children in Uganda. Many of them gave birth as teenagers and carried two things at once: a child to raise, and the weight of how other people saw them.
Walking alongside them made one thing obvious. What changed a life was not a donation. It was time, opportunity, and a relationship that lasted long enough to be relied on — the chance to stand up again on their own terms.
That is the philosophy of running, told in a different language. In a world that rewards speed, most real growth comes from going slowly and not stopping. So we built a brand that works the same way: a few good pieces, a fixed pledge, and no hurry.
Two promises
The name is the whole plan.
KIKO
Keep It, Keep On
Not rushed and not shaken. The work with children and young mothers was never about doing it perfectly; it was about doing it again next month, and the month after.
BANA
Balance And New Achievement
The courage to move at your own pace while still carrying the weight of a life. It is what a mother does, and what a runner learns on a long, patient climb.
How that turns into product
Three rules we do not bend.
01
Few things, properly
Five pieces means we can afford better fabric and a longer sampling process. A sixth would cost one of the five its attention.
02
Repair before replace, where we can
Zips, seams and waistbands can be repaired rather than replaced — write to us and we will quote the work. Clothing you keep is the cheapest thing we can sell you.
03
The pledge is fixed
Five percent of revenue, not profit, and not only in the months it suits us. It is a cost line, which is the only way a promise survives a bad quarter.