On an autumn morning in central Kraków, a daring fashion poster on a bus shelter brought Poland’s cultural capital to a sudden standstill. The imagery was clean, minimalist, and striking, evoking the sensual simplicity of 1990s luxury campaigns. One major outdoor advertising agency hesitated after legal review and rejected the billboard entirely. Two rival operators accepted it. Within days, the dispute made headlines in Gazeta Krakowska, turning a quiet product launch into an intense national conversation about public art, modern femininity, and design boundaries.
At the center of that visual controversy stood Brandon Robinson, a designer who looks unlike almost anyone else running a fashion house in Central Europe. Born in Oakville, Ontario, to a Jamaican father and a Polish mother, Brandon is the founder of LIGAS, a premium, independent women’s athleisure brand designed and manufactured entirely in Poland. His path to Central Europe was neither linear nor predictable; it was born of an appetite for risk, a deep reverence for history, and an unwavering refusal to settle into corporate complacency.
Urszula Opitek; Photographer at LIGAS
Long before he ever sketched a garment or managed a factory supply chain in Krosno, Brandon learned the foundational power of self-presentation at home. His father had emigrated from Kingston, Jamaica, to Toronto at age 13 as one of six children in a family of modest means, eventually rising to serve as a Justice of the Peace. “From when I was a child, he told me to take pride in my appearance and always dress well,” Brandon recalls. That lesson clicked vividly when he was 11 years old, and his mother bought him a tailored pea coat. Walking down the street in that coat, he was addressed as “Sir” for the very first time, a moment that revealed to him how deliberate clothing commands immediate respect.
Brandon’s Parents
Growing up in Bradford, Ontario (a quiet town of 25,000 people north of Toronto) Brandon developed a quiet, reflective intellect. Rather than pursuing fashion in his early university years, he immersed himself in antiquity, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Classics from York University in 2018 while commuting daily from Bradford, followed by a master’s degree in Classics from the University of Glasgow. For Robinson, classical Roman and Greek literature cultivated an eye for enduring form, structure, and proportion.
After finishing his graduate studies, Brandon visited Kraków and the Tatra mountains to reconnect with his maternal family roots. Expecting to stay for only six months to a year, he found himself captivated by the landscape. Surrounded by medieval castles, historic cobblestone squares, and centuries of preserved architecture, he discovered an unexpected sense of home.
Urszula Opitek; Photographer at LIGAS
Yet his journey took another detour before settling into design. Brandon entered corporate finance, taking an accounting role in Poland before accepting an offer at a boutique financial services firm in Luxembourg City. From the outside, it was a textbook climb up the corporate ladder: stable, lucrative, and secure. From the inside, it felt hollow. Standing in a sleek office in Luxembourg, he realized that financial reporting could never satisfy his creative drive. He missed the texture of Poland and resolved to return on his own terms by building a business from scratch.
Analyzing the European retail landscape, Robinson spotted a clear market gap. While yoga and Pilates were booming across Poland, high-end athleisure remained underdeveloped compared to North America, where brands like Lululemon had reshaped everyday wardrobes. He decided to introduce premium activewear tailored with European sophistication.
When choosing a name for his company, he turned to family memory. He named the brand LIGAS after his maternal grandmother’s maiden name, a surname tied to her father, Franciszek Ligas, from the Podhale mountain region. It represented a symbolic return: a grandson re-establishing a historic Polish family name in Central Europe through modern entrepreneurship.
Brandon and Grandmother
Launching LIGAS in October 2023 required pure adaptability. Funding early development with his finance savings, Brandon insisted on local production, sourcing fabrics and manufacturing across Poland. In a region known primarily for garment contract work, he repositioned Polish craftsmanship as a luxury asset.
Navigating Central Europe as a Black man of mixed Jamaican-Polish heritage brought its own distinct dynamics. While Poland is one of the most homogeneous countries in Europe, he found the local response overwhelmingly welcoming and curious. After appearing on the popular YouTube feature Aliens in Poland, his personal narrative went viral. Local customers reached out directly, expressing that they bought his leggings to support his unique personal journey.
Franciszek and Aniela_Ligas
That personal narrative gained even greater momentum following the Kraków billboard controversy. What began as a dispute over public advertising standards quickly translated into commercial acceleration. Within two months of the campaign, LIGAS expanded its footprint, securing new stockists in Warsaw, Paris, and Manchester.
For Brandon, fearlessness is about taking decisive action when staying still becomes unbearable. His trajectory, from classics classrooms in Toronto and Glasgow to corporate offices in Luxembourg, and ultimately to fashion ateliers in Kraków, reflects an individual comfortable with constant evolution.
Urszula Opitek; Photographer at LIGAS
“I think it’s important just to take the first step,” Brandon offers when asked what advice he would share with young creators hesitant to pursue ambitious leaps. “If you are confident, if you’re ambitious, you can really accomplish anything.”
Today, as LIGAS expands across European boutiques, Brandon Robinson remains grounded in the values passed down through generations; combining Canadian drive, Jamaican elegance, and Polish craftsmanship into a story that is uniquely his own
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