Business
Demand for African designers and African fashion growing rapidly
“It was a good thing to see international designers putting African fashion on the map,” said Ghanaian entrepreneur Samuel Mensah, who quit his job as a fund manager to launch online clothes retailer Kisua.com.
“Now we are starting to see Africa taking ownership of its own cultural assets. African designers are being noticed. They are stocked in international stores.”
While attitudes abroad have changed the industry is also trying to meet latent demand for quality fashion among the growing middle-class at home.
“The change has been brought about by global developments, both economical change and a communication change,” said Roger Gerards, creative director at Vlisco, one of the world’s biggest producers of African fabric.
“People see other countries and other cultures more easily than 20 years ago because of social media,” Gerards added.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the second fastest growing economic region in the world behind Asia and has a rapidly growing middle-class who have more access to world trends as mobile phones and the Internet reach tens of millions more people every year.
The industry has chosen to focus on middle-class consumers who value traditional manufacturing methods and local materials because it cannot compete with cheap mass-produced imports.
Source: Reuters
