PRECIOUS GOES GLOBAL

It was a warm, autumn evening; most of Windhoek had gone to bed early, as usual. On this night of socialites and fashionistas, fashion designers came together with musicians for an evening of wow.
Eyambukepo—meaning uprising in Oshiambo—was just that, standing tall for Africa.
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“I believe that it’s events like these that show the world what we, the youth, are about,” says Richard ‘KingRich’ Namwandi, owner of record label Bay Area Music, whose team founded the show  with Shewta Wahi, a Dubai-based designer.
This night of color and dash was a sign of changing times in the once sleepy Windhoek. Everywhere you look in the burgeoning capital city—with a population of 320,000—are construction sites and signs of growth.
“With Namibia being a relatively young country—independent for 23 years—it’s understandable why we are still in the process of breaking into international industries and markets on many fronts. However, entertainment doesn’t seem to be one of those anymore. The Namibian music scene has become very vibrant […] The fashion industry is growing at a similarly impressive pace. Last year, we had our first ever Namibian Fashion Show, which saw designers from all over Africa showcasing their designs alongside four Namibian designers,” says KingRich.
The line-up included the latest in musical talent and catwalk creations.
Hafeni ‘Happy’ Fransalso presented black and white evening wear with paisley details to applause. The College of the Arts Namibia graduate majored in fashion and design, visual arts and crafts. His collection of mens and womenswear included burnt orange and yellow fabric with geometric designs and fashionably oversized accessories. Happy, as he is known, is currently creating a line of accessories made from recycled materials.
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The greatest challenge to Namibia’s fashion industry, he feels, is the lack of home-grown fashion magazines.
“These challenges can be overcome when people realize and see the potential in fashion, not only as an industry to make money and look good but as an art,” he says.
That evening the catwalk was also home to Namibia’s rising singers, rappers, kwaito and R&amp;B performers, from Blossom and Beast to KevyGuy and Brain The Tool.
The most popular was Ruusa Ndapewa Munalye, known as Blossom. This soulful singer was nominated in 12 categories at the Namibian Annual Music Awards (NAMAs) and was named Namibia’s Best Female Artist of 2013. She scooped three other awards including: Best Kizomba; Best Newcomer and Best Shambo.
“My music reflects what is most close to my heart—messages of my roots, love, hope, and freedom,” she says.
The award-winning guitarist has performed in the United States and is touring Europe.
“The fashion show was great as it brings growth and exposure to the Namibian fashion industry. The mix of music and fashion strengthens the display of these great creations,” she says.
There is synergy between the two art forms.
“I believe as an artist, personally, that your style has to be top every time you come out. If you want to maintain an image, if you want people to respect you for your certain image, you have to be fashionable at all times. I believe they are one and the same at the end of the day,” says KingRich, who performed that night.
The sub-Saharan African country has been host to other large-scale fashion shows, as the tough-to-crack industry grows.
“The Namibian market in fashion only really started in the last two or three years, where you can actually do fashion shows like this, showcase your creativity and see how far you can push the barrier […]” says Tsatago Garoëb.
The 30-year-old happened upon his flair for fashion in high school, when he designed his sister’s graduation dress. Garoëb studied fashion and textile design at the University of Namibia. Today, he owns a fashion label—House of Tsatago, also known as H.O.T—which has dressed numerous Namibian celebrities.
His adventurous style lives through his eccentric dresses; after all, he was an assistant to David Tlale—an award-winning South African designer—during last year’s Namibian Fashion Show. Garoëb tests the boundaries because that is what fashion is about.
“I wanted to play with fabric. I wanted it to be fun, which is why I used chiffon, because it is free moving. And I wanted to incorporate fabrics like lace because it’s quite transparent and very dangerous but this accentuates a woman’s beauty. I wanted whoever is wearing my garments to feel free, beautiful and sexy, hence why I called this collection ‘hot, hot, hot’ because all of my garments were pretty hot,” he says.
The final collection, with an African feel to it, came from Shweta Wahi. It drew a standing ovation.
While other 10-year-old girls were playing with dolls, Wahi was sewing.
“For every birthday I would ask for a sewing machine or a mannequin or something to do with stitching or fabrics,” she says.
The self-taught 22-year-old—who has an eponymous fashion label—had featured in as many fashion shows as her years. This was the first of many more to come in Africa for the Indian-born designer, who was raised in Dubai and studied in Canada.
Wahi was the youngest designer at Ottawa Fashion Week in 2012 and has also showcased on the Toronto and Dubai fashion circuits.
“When you show up and people see that you are a young girl, they feel that you might be working for the person who is supposed to show up. They find it a little difficult to take you seriously, until they see your work coming down the catwalk,” she says.
Wahi interned for the winner of the first season of Project Runway Canada, Evan Biddell, who is also self-taught. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in visual arts at York University and qualified as an image consultant at George Brown College.
“When I start cutting the fabric, I don’t use technical patterns, because I never studied fashion at school. There is a dialogue between me and the fabric, and I drape it around a mannequin and just nip and tuck where I feel it fits […] If something goes wrong, there is always a way to fix it, you make it look like a beautiful mistake,” she says.
Her advice to aspiring fashion designers?
“I definitely think marketing has a lot to do with it and it depends on how you market your label because you have so many talented artists out there. I’ve seen so many people who are amazingly passionate and they can’t get their label out there; they can’t get the exposure they deserve. If they brush up on their business skills and maybe find a business partner and collaborate on marketing they can definitely have a sustainable business.”
But it’s not just about profit, Wahi has used her talents to raise over C$50,000 ($48,000) for charitable organizations such as the Canadian Red Cross and Haiti Relief Fund, to name a few.
This is only the beginning for Eyambukepo, it will return to a different country in Africa each year, and hopes to grace the catwalks of the world’s fashion capitals.

Tonight Windhoek,  Tomorrow the World

The number of millionaires in Africa is rising faster than anywhere else in the world. Thanks to fast-growing economies and a thriving oil industry, the continent’s wealth is forecast to remain on the up. But where do Africa’s nouveau riche spend their money? For now, most jet to London, New York or Singapore to buy the latest fashion.
Hanneli Rupert wants to change this. She is the 28-year-old daughter of billionaire Johann Rupert, the CEO of Richemont, the Switzerland-based group behind top brands like Cartier, Dunhill and Montblanc. With her luxury brand store, Merchants on Long, she brings Africa’s top labels to South Africa, for most this is their debut.
“A lot of African high-end designers export directly without ever selling in their home countries or on the continent,” says Rupert.
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Housed in a double storey Art Nouveau building on Cape Town’s famous shopping mile, Long Street, the store delivers a true Cape-to-Cairo experience. Merchants is stocked with merchandise from Ethiopia to Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Senegal and Ghana, most of which is 100% handmade. Luxurious fashion items hang next to antique shelves filled with exquisite jewelry, bags, perfumes and homewares, while works of contemporary African artists and photographers grace the walls.
Rupert, who divides her time between Cape Town and the United Kingdom, says she modeled Merchants on London’s famous Dover Street Market, an über-trendy, multi-designer store with a glamorous feel.
“We fit into the idea of the aspiring, new Africa,” she says, while sipping a cappuccino.
Merchants’ in-house coffee bar only serves ethically-produced coffee grown on the continent, that can be drunk from crockery custom-designed for Merchants, by South African ceramicist Michael Chandler.
The store attracts a diverse mix of customers, ranging from European and American tourists to African business travelers and South Africans.
Before Rupert opened Merchants in late 2010, she spent close to a year traveling across the continent to pick and choose the designers she wanted to work with. She was looking for creatives who didn’t imitate European design but had developed a personal style linked to their African heritage.
“I want to grow an African aesthetic. I want Africa to be known as a hub for exotics and manufacturing, not only as an export haven for raw materials,” she says.
Since then, Rupert has worked tirelessly to put African designers on the global map. The Merchants pop-up store she opened in London last May, which received much praise, was the first step towards putting a global spotlight on African luxury goods.
“There is such a desire to see contemporary African design internationally. I am absolutely certain Africa is going to be the next booming art and design market. It’s already slowly happening,” says Rupert.
On the continent, too, the rich and trendy have taken note. In March, Rupert represented some of her designers at the annual Arise Magazine Fashion Week in Lagos, Nigeria; the labels were applauded for their style and quality.
“I want to showcase the manufacturing capabilities of the continent. People have a lot of misconceptions. When they think of design in Africa, they think of beading, not of sustainable trade. I wanted to give people a different perspective,” she says.
Rupert puts the new interest in African high-end fashion and design down to a wave of brain regain—a reversal of the brain drain of the 1990s, when thousands left the continent to pursue job opportunities overseas.
“There is a new trend of patriotism on the continent,” she says.
Rupert is part of that trend. She trained as a fine artist and painter and returned to South Africa, after a four-year stint in London and Athens, to start Okapi—a line of luxury leather handbags that feature springbok horns as talismans. She planned to launch an Okapi flagship store in Cape Town, but her father suggested that she open a multi-brand store first, to increase marketability.
“Merchants would never have happened without his advice,” she says.
Johann Rupert knows what he is talking about. He runs the world’s third largest luxury goods company, which he inherited from his father, Anton, one of South Africa’s most successful business tycoons. With £10 in his pocket in 1941, Anton Rupert started a multi-million dollar conglomerate that today spans luxury goods, finance, tobacco and mining interests, and encompasses hundreds of companies in 35 countries across six continents. The business later split into Remgro and Richemont. FORBES estimates the family’s net worth at $6.6 billion.
Two generations later, the luxury business is almost an inherent part of Hanneli’s genes.
“It’s having the access and growing up in an environment where you learn about business on a day-to-day basis. I learnt simple but important things from my father, like not underestimating your customer, and customer service being hugely important. I also learned to rely on my instincts,” says Rupert.
And her instincts tell her that there’s an increasing demand for authentic, ethically-manufactured African goods. She made this the overarching concept behind her Okapi label and Merchants on Long.
“There is a shift towards buying locally. People want traceability when it comes to what they eat. They want to know where it comes from. People start to want the same thing for clothes and design,” she says.
With entrepreneurship in her veins and an eye for opportunity, Rupert is set to make her mark as her family’s next generation of luxury business owners.

The Billionaire’s  Apprentice

Whether your Swiss timepiece is a statement accessory—an expensive piece of ticktockery that screams your success to the world—or acquired because you are in love with the high precision, micro-technologies beneath that expensive watch face; whether it is bought as an investment piece or as a once-off, customized piece of art, your watch determines who you are in the world.
The wheel of fortune has turned since the 1970s and 1980s, when the quartz movement nearly saw the demise of the 300-year-old Swiss watchmaking industry. Hand-wound mechanisms are now firmly back in the luxury watch repertoire.
More than 20 million Swiss francs ($21.2 million) were reportedly spent on posh watches in 2012. Not only is a luxury watch a valuable portable asset, which any bank manager would welcome but in today’s market, it has a real resale value.
Every year the competitive watch industry pushes the boundaries of technical function and precision in its iconic brands for the delight of the watch junkie. New refinements include thinner cases containing more parts, increasingly sophisticated complications, such as multi-time zone movements and perpetual calendars, and an increase in the use of Métiers d’Art, using materials like enamel, wood marquetry and gold. There is even a nod to the heritage and legacy of watchmaking—the pocket watch and minute repeaters.
What better showcase for all this than one of Switzerland’s premium watch shows, the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) at the Palexpo in Geneva?
This is the 23rd year that Richemont—founded by South African businessman Johann Rupert—has hosted this by-invitation-only haute horlogerie fair, which attracts more than 12,000 international retailers and brand representatives from the watch fraternity, as well as 1,200 watch journalists.
Despite the Palexpo’s rather unprepossessing, hangar-like appearance, the interior is set up as a series of elegant spaces, with cream walls, butter-colored leather couches and chairs, discreet lighting and chocolate-hued carpets. Entering each booth is like stepping into each brand’s signature boutique, complete with chandeliers.
Perfectly coiffed hostesses greet guests at the entrances as waiters serve food and beverages during the show’s five-day duration.
The dress code is chic business attire during the day for the back-to-back presentations and quiet understatement for the many glitzy parties and dinners. It is important for the brands to show how well they are doing; many vie for the title of best dressed.
Georges Kern—the CEO for three of the big brands at the fair, namely IWC, Baume &amp; Mercier and Roger Dubuis—heads up a marketing campaign that creates the biggest buzz around these brands. In fact, IWC has doubled its production since 2006.
Each year the IWC has a theme, this year it was ‘The Big Race’. To celebrate its completely remodeled 2013 Ingénieur watch collection in partnership with the Mercedes-Benz AMG Petronas Formula One team, the IWC booth was decked out like a testosterone-fuelled Formula One cockpit and attracted non-stop media attention.
The friends of the brand included Kevin Spacey, Victoria’s Secret models Karolina Kurková and Adriana Lima, Formula One driver Nico Rosberg, motorsport engineer Ross Brawn, football’s Rafael Medina, Luis Figo and actors Matthew Fox and Eric Dane, as well as other celebrities from the world of arts and sport.
This year’s ribbon-cutting ceremony took place at the whimsically decorated Roger Dubuis booth, which was dominated by a giant gold-crowned eagle bearing a key in its talons, and populated by medieval knights and a falconer, to honor the Excalibur collection. Extra window dressing was provided by three friends of the brand, Daphne Guinness, Scottish actor Gerard Butler and Tomer Sisley.
Another big buzz this year was the launch of Baume &amp; Mercier’s new Clifton range, named after Cape Town’s beach by the same name—the range is apparently favored by Johann Rupert himself. The collection is expected to do very well, especially in the American and African markets.
Art formed a big part of the fair and Montblanc displayed its Cutting Edge collection, showing interpretations of its iconic star logo. The Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie also exhibited timepieces dating back to the 15th century.
The new IWC Ingénieur watches carried the tagline “engineered for men”, but the big news this year was the lady’s watch. The new diamond clad Piaget Limelight Gala women’s watches were designed for bling bunnies, and the oldest horological house, Vacheron Constantin, brought out a completely new women’s range called the Malte Lady. Cartier also put emphasis on their new Crash watches.
Panerai is truly a collector’s brand because its production is so limited and this year the brand came up with some exciting new timepieces, including the Luminor Amagnetic which resists fields of up to 4,000 side amps per square meter. The P.9000 caliber is encased inside a soft iron cage to protect it from magnetic fields.
Iconic Swiss brand Jaeger-LeCoultre celebrated its 180th birthday in style, with an appearance by Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter Carmen Chaplin who made a short film about time. Her grandfather’s watch, which was presented to him by the people of Switzerland when he sought refuge there in the 1950s, was on display and the brand brought out an entire Jubilee collection.
Asia might be the biggest investor in this market but emerging markets like Africa are beginning to show an interest in prestige timepieces.
South Africa has a small but healthy market for luxury watches and the local jewelry trade was well represented at this year’s fair, from Bellagios in Sandton City, which has a shop-in-shop for Roger Dubuis, to Christopher Greig of Charles Greig Jewelers, Jennifer and David Moss from Picot &amp; Moss, Schwartz Jewelers and Oresti Mavrodaris from Elegance Jewelers. The latest makes and models that they put in orders for at the SIHH will be finding their way onto their clients’ wrists within the next 18 months.

Invest In Time

For many years fashionista Omoyemi Akerele had been pondering the dearth of fashion designers in Nigeria. From her musings, she realized that the issue was not the dearth of designers, but limited platforms through which designers could showcase their works. This was the case for decades despite the efforts of pioneers such as Shade Thomas-Fahm who worked tirelessly throughout the 1960s to bring attention to the industry. Her fervor and creativity laid the foundation for the fashion industry, while she also inspired a plethora of designers to pursue their passion.
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Akerele is one of those stylists that have taken the baton from the pioneer in her commitment to extend the frontiers of the fashion industry. She started a fashion consultancy in Nigeria at a time when little attention was paid to the industry. Her vision is for the industry to flourish and be acknowledged all over the world.
“There is a lot of promise in the Nigerian Fashion industry… So much untapped potential [and] I see my role as a catalyst,” says Akerele.
It was her vision to see Nigeria and Africa take its rightful place in the global fashion industry that drove her to create Style House, a fashion agency that promotes and supports the industry. But this was not enough.
“There was a need for a unified platform that designers could benefit from by showing their work to the industry at large. I thought that if the designers could come together to show under one platform, we would get the press and the whole community involved during this period. There’s more strength in that as opposed to different individual shows at different times of the year”, says Akerele.
Her vision culminated in the launch of the Lagos Fashion and Design Week (LFDW) in October 2011.
Pulling off such an event was no easy feat. After various attempts at securing sponsorship, MTN, the telecommunications company agreed to sponsor the inaugural event.
“What MTN was offering us, was low compared to what we needed to pull off a show of this size, but when you have a vision, you know there’s got to be a way this can work so at least you start,” she says.
In the end, the inaugural Lagos catwalk on the runway set the bar beyond her expectations.
Another challenging issue was scouting for young designers. This was due to certain constraints such as funding, rent textile availability and lack of training and resource centers, which impede the development of the local industry. The average designer has little or no accessibility to funds. Product continuity is stifled by limited supply of certain fabrics. Designers who can afford to produce their own textiles are few and far between and this greatly increases the final cost of the garment.
In other parts of the world, the education sector places emphasis on empowering the fashion entrepreneurs through colleges and resource centers. The industry teams up with upcoming designers who are willing to give their time and energy to teach fashion and its workings. In Nigeria, fashion has no representation in the academic establishment and there are very little collaborative efforts in the fashion industry. The average fashion enthusiast is a graduate of an international fashion school or is self-taught.
“Recently, I got an email from one of our international partners, asking for a list of fashion universities or colleges in Nigeria. I could not reply to the email for two weeks. I was so ashamed. It is amazing to know that about 90% of the industry is self-taught; the other 10% obtained their degrees from international institutions. There are 1% [of Nigerian designers] that probably rely on private people like Ginani or Ituen Basi who run individual fashion courses but in terms of proper institutions that run courses, we have none,” she says.
“I was on the London underground and I saw adverts of British fashion universities. This year, a report was put out for the British fashion industry. As we speak, its contribution to the economy from both retail and the industry brought over £200 million into the economy and they are still focusing on how to make the schools and the industry better to ensure that they produce more. We do not even have fashion universities that function here. That really breaks my heart,” says Akerele.
The visionary founder of LFDW believes that her annual catwalk runway will continue to unearth and support the latent talent in Nigeria. The inaugural event last year brought to the fore names such as Bridget Awosika who received rave reviews from Vogue UK. The fashion magazine described her work as “authentic African design”. This was a proud moment for Akerele. When asked about the event she told Vogue that “the event marks an awakening among some designers here who have been able to gradually evolve from what they come to accept as fashion—let’s call it a more traditional approach—to a place where they now understand that there’s much more we can offer…”
With the amount of effort going into its preparation, LFDW 2012 promises to be even bigger. The event—sponsored by MTN, RIM, Blackberry, Virgin Atlantic Airways, British Council and Porsche­­­—will not just end with the runway. After the event Akerele wants to give designers more exposure in the local and international market.
“The plan is to raise the stakes, not necessarily by doing more things but in strengthening and solidifying the vision. We are just trying to make sure that we do this better and create a better experience for people out there. The pop-up stores come up right after fashion week in London. We believe that it is important for press and buyers to attend. As we speak, Nigeria is not yet a destination for buyers so we decided to take the people to the buyers. We are going for different appointments with buyers to position Nigerian designers to benefit from that. We are also working on the Nigerian market as well so designers can work together. We are working on garment manufacturing companies that can make clothes for Nigerian designers. We are also putting pressure on all the companies that are setting up malls across Nigeria, lobbying for spaces for designers in some of the malls. The more locations the materials can be bought, the bigger the impact on the industry. We want to make a difference in the businesses of these designers.”
Akerele is also the ambassador of the ‘Buy Nigeria’ campaign, an initiative to promote Nigerian made clothes. Her vision for the near future is for the Nigerian indigenous fashion industry to contribute significantly to the GDP and this can only be achieved through indigenous fashion retail.
“Nigerian designers have to think of how to make their designs accessible to the 150 million Nigerians out there. The more people consume, the more people will be aware and the bigger the industry,” she says.
The future of fashion is promising and surely more progress will be made considering the effort industry faithful are putting into its development. Akerele’s tireless task as an ambassador and catalyst for the Nigerian industry has earned her remarkable acclaim with both local and international fashion communities. She has managed to inspire tangible change within the industry in a relatively short period. When asked about her plans for the future, her face lit up and in an alluring response, her reply was ‘Watch this space’.

Why Fashion Breaks My Heart

If you’ve been living under a rock be sure to emerge and catch up because Africa is in vogue.
As far back as 2009, the world’s top designers couldn’t help making inspired references to what was once called the Dark Continent. The likes of Marc Jacobs and John Galliano have paid homage to Africa’s intricate beauty. Well renowned international designer Vivienne Westwood, exhibited her interest in Africa through her Ethical Fashion Africa Collection. Other Labels bitten by the Africa bug have been Burberry, Gwen Stefani’s LAMB and Tommy Hilfiger.
Arise Magazine’s African Icons show at last month’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week New York featured designs by Gavin Rajah, Ozwald Boateng, Folake Folarin (Tiffany Amber), Tsemaye Binitie and Amaka Osakwe (Maki Oh).
At the Arise Magazine Fashion Week in Lagos, Boateng was handed the Lifetime Achievement award and labels KLuK CGDT and Maki Oh won best designer.
It’s gone beyond Africans inspiring international designers, to African designers sharing their own history and creativity.
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Nigerian Designer, Lisa Folawiyo, studied law at the University of Nigeria and followed her dream when she started Jewel by Lisa from home in 2005. She redefined the way one could wear Ankara—a colorful wax resist dyed fabric—and makes handcrafted clothes that take an average of 120 hours, using custom made prints.
Nigerian fashion is moving away from the local markets with their rows of fabric stalls and corner tailors.
Folawiyo has exhibited in Johannesburg, London, Paris and New York. To increase her appeal and market, Folawiyo launched a diffusion line, The J Label, in 2011. The pieces emulate the luxury core of her designs but are a more practical and accessible option. The new label offers anything from trousers and handbags to dresses. While the main label ranges from $350-$11,500, the diffusion line ranges from $150-$350.
In South Africa, and further afield, the name Gavin Rajah is synonymous with style, opulence and glamor. He is a true example of an African designer turned international sensation. Rajah’s fashion is inspiring, his shows are mesmerizing and it’s no wonder he’s dressed people like Beyonce, Nelson Mandela, Tom Cruise, Naomi Campbell among others. As if this were not enough, Rajah has even delved into jewelry design.
Taking fashion beyond just designs, Rajah wrote a paper titled “Creating an Identity in Design: South Africa the future of fashion?”, which reached as far as Milan. A founder of the Cape Town Fashion Week, Rajah, is serious about the industry and its sustainability in the country. He’s made a point of employing and mentoring young designers in his Cape Town studio and sits on the Cape Town Fashion Council board.
From UNICEF Ambassador to design extraordinaire, Rajah sees no limit for his brand.
The most stylish first lady of the United States, since Jackie Kennedy Onassis, is a big fan of Nigerian Duro Olowu. Michelle Obama has worn the designer’s garments on many occasions. Quitting law was the best thing Olowu could have done for the fashion world. The courtroom’s loss has evidently been the runway’s gain. Olowu’s love for art goes beyond fashion and makes for interesting collections; all that creativity makes it hard to imagine him wanting to succeed in any profession but this one. His career was catapulted when he won the New Designer of the Year award at the 2005 British Fashion Awards. Now his clothes can be found online and in stores in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
“My job is not about dictating to women what they should wear, it’s about presenting them with beautiful options,” Olowu once told The Independent in London.
Deola Sagoe is a talented and beautiful mother of three, whose clothes have been modeled by supermodels Naomi Campbell and Alek Wek. Her daughters have fashion in their blood as they have launched their own fashion label CLAN. Sagoe went to college in the United States and has a Master’s in finance and management. She will showcase her new range at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Africa being held in Johannesburg at the end of this month.
Describing the Deola Sagoe woman, the designer says: “She is colorful—she uses color to mirror her mood. She is vital—energetic—not the shy, retiring, type, but she also knows the appropriate time to hold her peace.”
The final feather on the African cap is Tiffany Amber’s Folake Folarin-Coker, another Nigerian who did not study fashion and escaped the legal world. Folarin-Coker has a degree in Petroleum law and spent her childhood in Europe. The label launched in 1998 but she made history when she became the first African-based designer to showcase at New York Fashion Week for two consecutive seasons, in 2008 and 2009.
Tiffany Amber has an online shop as well as three stores in Lagos. The brand had grown by adding two more lines and winning Arise Magazine’s Fashion Brand of the Year award for the Autumn/Winter 2011 collection.
With designers such as these, it’s no surprise African designers are taking the industry by storm and inspiring plenty. This is just the beginning as there are many budding designers.
Nina Baksmaty’s Koshie O label is gorgeous. The Ghanaian designer established a workshop in Ghana and her work has attracted the likes of Franca Sozzanni and Roberto Cavalli on their visit to West Africa. She has also brought in American singers Mỳa and Michele Williams for one of her campaigns.
Osakwe’s Maki Oh line is definitely on the right track. Her age has not hindered her will to take on the world fashion. Although she grew up in London, the Nigerian designer returned to her country of birth to start her fashion line. Her inclusion in the New York Fashion Week will only solidify her place as a young designer to watch. She brings her age and fun to her designs and shows that sometime the “now generation” is a little old school. Osakwe uses adire, which is a process of indigo dying cloth using natural indigo leaves as opposed to industrial dye. This is commonly done by Yoruba women in southwestern Nigeria. She says it takes a day to hand paint five meters of fabric and another day to dye and de-wax it.
Osakwe says her latest collection is inspired by secrets and people’s inability to keep them. This imagery is brought forward by the eyes in her prints.
Loza Maléombho is Arise Magazine Fashion Week’s Emerging Designer of the Year. She designs in the United States and manufactures the clothes at her workshop in Côte d’Ivoire. This talented designer’s work can be traced as far back as her early teens, when she made dresses for the women in her family. Her Afro-Modern designs make use of batik prints, wax fabrics and Kente cloth. She’s all about showing the world what she has to offer and helping out the Côte d’Ivorian woman in the process.
The other fresh talent to keep an eye out for is Mimi Plange. Her Boudoir D’Huitres label has been around since 2007. Fashion guru André Leon Talley took an interest in and mentored her for her New York fashion Week presentation. As if this was not enough of a fashion nod, she created a capsule shoe collection with Manolo Blahnik—a dream for any woman in the world.
Africa is bringing more than just oil, gold and war to the table. The future of fashion is here.

Africa In Vogue

When Ruth Obih completed her legal studies she could see law and nothing else.
“I wanted to be a lawyer so badly, I was bent on it! That was my passion,” she recalls with a smile.
It didn’t work out that way for Obih. After practicing for a year, her first legal firm decided not to retain her. It was a blow to her dreams, to say the least. Few knew then, including her, that this set back was to put her on the path to a fortune.
Obih forgot law and made a 180 degree turn into fashion. She enrolled at the London College of Fashion and returned to Nigeria with her newly acquired skills.
“People always admired what I wore. So, when you tell me you like what I’m wearing, I’d tell you I sell it,” she says.
Fashion whiled away the time, but Obih yearned for more.
“I get bored really easily and always set new tasks for myself. On achieving them, I move on to my next task,” she says.
So it was back to London, where Obih enrolled for her Qualified Lawyers Transfer Test (QLTT) in the hope of practicing law again. While studying, she interned at a property law firm and became intrigued by the business of real estate. With no formal training in property, thoughts of using her legal skills in the real estate business flooded through her mind.
In 2006, Obih started 3Invest Limited UK, in London—a company focused on providing legal advice and property for those wanting to invest in real estate. A good response in London, led to thoughts of how this kind of service would fare in Nigeria.
Obih moved back to Nigeria later that year. She registered 3Invest Homes in Lagos and began hunting for properties to market with her legal advice.
In January 2007, Obih made her first big sale—a property worth millions of naira. She moved money from her thriving fashion label—Ruru Tunics—to secure the deal.
“I never went to the banks to ask for a loan. I almost have a phobia for that,” says Obih.
Sale after sale, 3Invest grew in leaps and bounds, as did Obih’s ambition.
“Yet again, it was time for me to do something different, I had toyed with the idea of starting a real estate advocacy platform using radio,” she says.
It took a number of approaches to radio stations and months of uncertainty. In the end, Obih’s proposal was accepted leading to the launch of Nigeria’s first real estate radio show, in March 2011, called Real Estate on Air.
“This show, is geared at empowering the Nigerian populace and helping them make better informed decisions when investing in real estate, the program is a one-stop shop, for real estate in Nigeria,” says Obih.
She also runs a real estate blog, driving traffic to the radio show.
With a fashion brand; a growing real estate business and a radio show under her belt, Obih is not done yet.
As a business woman, Obih describes herself as shrewd and dynamic.

Law, Fashion, Property, Radio, Success

With their short hair, casual style and youthful faces, sisters Beatrice and Delphinah look strikingly similar.
“Lauretta is in South Africa, studying computer games,” Beatrice explains her absence as the two sisters sit down to coffee on the beach on a Sunday afternoon.
Despite the fact that Angolan women’s magazines Caras and Caju have designated them as one of Angola’s most influential fashion labels, they make an unassuming, almost shy, first impression.
Beatrice, Delphinah and Lauretta grew up in Botswana and Namibia. Beatrice studied interior design in Cape Town, Delphinah studied economics in Namibia.
Sometime in 2001, Delphinah made a skirt that changed her life and that of her sisters.
“My fellow students really liked that skirt, so I started making denim ones for them. That same year, we launched our own label, GSquare. We even created our own model agency, with 30 male and female models,” she says.
“In the beginning it was just the two of us,” Beatrice says, “but we were soon joined by one of Delphinah’s friends. I designed and made men’s clothes, Delphinah women’s clothes. The men’s label was put on hold, but we’ll relaunch it next year.”
In 2001, GSquare won the Young Entrepreneurs Prize at the Namibian Entrepreneurs Competition. Soon afterwards, Delphinah’s friend quit.
“That’s when Delphinah, Lauretta and I launched our own label: Geraldo Fashions. It is named after our late father, who was an artist, painter and carpenter,” says Beatrice.
“We’ve now got American, German, South African and Namibian clients,” Delphinah says, “as well as Angolan celebrities.”
TV presenter and model Vania Vilèla, for instance, is the current ‘face’ of Geraldo Fashions. So are singer and Big Brother Africa reality TV star Tatiana Durao, Big Brother Africa star and Channel O presenter Weza Silva, and Angolan top model Karina Silva.
International fashion shows form an integral part of the Geraldo sisters’ business. In 2002, the Geraldo sisters participated in the Pan African Fashion Show. That same year, they were elected Best Young Namibian Designers by an international judging panel at the fashion show, Sense of Africa.
Three years after Beatrice and Delphinah moved back to Angola, their label participated in the seventh edition of the Angola Fashion Week in 2008. Geraldo Fashions was also represented at the Angola Fashion Week in 2009, 2010 and 2011. In October 2011, Geraldo Fashions participated in Luanda’s second edition of Fashion Business Angola.
“That’s the biggest fashion event in Africa, with 26 international and nine Angolan designers,” says Beatrice.
There are other high-profile events scheduled for 2012: the Swahili Fashion Week, Cape Town Fashion Week, and Mozambique Fashion Week. The Geraldo sisters also hope to participate in the next Africa Fashion Week.
Geraldo Fashions is still small. Its current annual turnover is a little less than $70,000, compared to $10,000 in the first five years of its existence. So far, neither economic crises nor Chinese or Angolan competition have got in the way.
“We’re too small for recessions to have a significant impact,” Beatrice says, “but we do compete against Angolan boutiques, which often sell very nice Brazilian and European labels.”
Beatrice, Delphinah and Lauretta have funded their entire business themselves. They started their fashion career with one manual sewing machine.
“We only bought our first electrical machines after our first official show, which left us with many new clients. Now that we’re successful, we still make all our clothes ourselves, at home. Our brand is very exclusive, and all our work is based on private orders,” says Beatrice.
The sisters buy most of their fabrics in South Africa, Namibia, Portugal and France. Silk and chiffon are among their favorites, as are feathers, fur and laces. Daring, detailed tailoring, with a wide array of colors, mark their designs.
Those who want to wear Geraldo Fashions’ exclusive designs and materials have to place a personal order. The label is no longer sold at Cape Town designer boutiques Second Time Around and Loulou Store, but the sisters are currently trying to open their own shop in Luanda instead. Their fashion items don’t come cheap.
“But they are affordable by Angolan standards,” Beatrice says. “A dress will cost you between $350 and $700.”
The sisters’ ambitions don’t stop here. Future plans include Geraldo Fashions shops in Namibia, South Africa and outside Africa, and an accessory line with jewelry and shoes.
Geraldo Fashions seems to have been born at the right time. “Our fashion has a modern African feel, for which there is an increasing demand. We see more and more people wearing national designers at events, parties, clubs and restaurants, and also in African magazines. Four or five years ago, Angolan labels were almost non-existent in people’s daily lives,” says Beatrice.

Fashionista Sistas!

As Precious Moloi-Motsepe walks into the restaurant at the plush Michelangelo Towers, in the affluent northern suburbs of Johannesburg, she smiles sweetly while making her way to the table. The waiters are on their marks, but she signals kindly with her eyes that she’s fine—a down-to-earth lady in a peach power suit.
<div id="attachment_283" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-283" class="size-medium wp-image-283" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_1557-1-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />Dr Precious Moloi &#8211; Motsepe, chairperson of the African Fashion Week held in Sandton</div>
She chuckles as she says many people ask how she switched from medicine to fashion. A doctor specializing in women’s health, she left her practice to chair a company organizing fashion week shows.
It is merely one leg of a long journey. One of five children, Moloi-Motsepe was born and raised in Soweto, south of Johannesburg; she went to a Catholic school in Rustenburg before studying medicine at Wits University in Johannesburg. This was followed by postgraduate studies in human and reproductive health at the University of Stellenbosch, near Cape Town.
The switch to fashion came after she stopped working to have a baby.  At the same time, her family foundation was being established, which contributes largely to education, health and economic opportunities for young people. The foundation was offered a fashion company in Cape Town and Moloi-Motsepe says she soon realised an opportunity was presenting itself in the clothing and textile business—an industry that employs many women.
As Moloi-Motsepe had worked in women’s health, this was another opportunity to help women help themselves economically. This heralded the birth of Africa Fashion International (AFI).
“I covered a lot; seeing fashion weeks and the impact they have on the economy of countries. You have media traveling from all over the world going there, you have buyers moving from all over the world to go there—you know it just stimulates growth,” Moloi-Motsepe says.
Africa Fashion Week, held at the Sandton Convention Centre from October 20 to 22 this year, proved to be the biggest yet with more than 20,000 visitors attending the event, as well as the Africa Fashion Trade Expo.
“Fashion in Africa is going places; we have an advantage of a growing population—a billion people on the continent. That’s a big number. The important thing is it should be consumers who are able to buy,” says Moloi-Motsepe.
The good doctor believes there is potential, but admits there are problems along the way, like a shortage of capital, an abundance of cheap imports and poor distribution.
“Cheap imports make it difficult for local designers to compete in the market because our input costs are very high compared to China,” she says.
“I think the best way for us is not to get stuck in competing at that level. Our focus should be on the high design, high quality, high value-added products—I think that will help to maintain sustainability of our industry.”
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Tea with the Queen of Fashion

Not so long ago, fashion design in Africa went something like this: A tailor sets up shop in the back room of his house; he services the needs of the community’s elite; in between making wedding dresses for local girls and three-piece matric dance suits for the boys, he’s known as the go-to person should your hemline need a bit of adjustment.
Ten years ago, this was fashion designer David Tlale’s reality as he sat alone by the sewing machine in his mother’s house in the township of Vosloorus, in the East Rand of Johannesburg, South Africa, drawing sketches and making patterns. Nowadays, it is these designs that have helped change the face of fashion in South Africa and the continent.
<div id="attachment_280" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-280" class="size-medium wp-image-280" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/299-35_01_1-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />Fashion designer David Tlale at his Sandton store; Johannesburg, 1 November 2011 &#8211; Photo by Brett Eloff.</div>
As Tlale and I sit in the lounge of the upmarket Fire &amp; Ice! hotel in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, for sundowners, it is crystal clear that his vision is far from being a mere pipedream. In the nine years that he has been a professional fashion designer, he has won many awards and accolades; he has become arguably the most famous and recognizable black designer in South Africa with a list of endorsements.
And on the topic of endorsement, his current collaboration with the South African Mint is the talk of the town, owing to reports that the Mint stopped producing money on the day they hosted his fashion show at their Centurion premises during the recent Africa Fashion Week, in October.
So how did he get the money-making machine to come on board with him?
“SA Mint got in contact with me after they attended the fashion show that I held on the Mandela Bridge in May 2011 (the bridge was also closed for this show). They had been supporting a few campaigns on climate change—the awareness and fundraising for it, so they wanted me to bring a fashion element, like an artistic interpretation of the dangers and effects of climate change,” he says.
The Mint had a special coin, worth more than $1,000, struck in his honour for his contribution to the cause.
The Mint was not the only customer. Luxury car manufacturer Volvo also selected Tlale as one of three South African designers—along with Nkhensani Nkosi of Stoned Cherrie and Gert-Johan Coetzee—to help design its cars.
But his biggest coup so far has been Estée Lauder’s Clinique range, for which he designed a limited edition handbag. This resulted in David Tlale branding being splashed across malls and department stores all over South Africa and beyond.
In September 2011, Tlale took a major plunge by opening a store at the high-end Michelangelo Towers in Africa’s economic hub—the mall of Sandton City. Now, at a time of recession when other established designers are selling into major parent companies, mainly for security, this move has raised the proverbial eyebrow among many a fashion and retail expert.
“Three years ago, Woolworths came to me and offered to take my brand on to distribute through their stores. Now after working for so many years to make sure that consumers understood my identity and aesthetic, I decided to decline this offer because I felt that they wanted to wash away much of the detail that makes a David Tlale creation. They wanted to dilute my signature basically, so I decided to wait it out until I felt that my brand was ready to stand on its own two feet in the world of retail,” he says confidently.
Tlale is also known to be open and honest about having faced extreme highs and lows in his journey to becoming a fashion businessman.
“I have seen it all,” he says. “I have gone through times where the business overheads were way more than what was coming in; I have even gone through a time when I thought I needed to get a nine-to-five job to finance the costs of running the label. But that was part of the journey that every entrepreneur goes through.
“People criticize and slate me for choosing the Michelangelo Towers to house the store, but I personally believe that the brand David Tlale calls for an address like that and nothing else. We are a luxury brand and we have to be where all the other luxury brands are, and where the tourists and the moneyed set hang out. And the label is ready,” he adds.
While it remains to be seen just how well the store at the Towers does, over at The Bromwell boutique hotel in Cape Town, where Tlale’s wares are also sold, things appear to be going swimmingly.
“I was so amazed by how well our merchandise is moving at The Bromwell. At this point, customers are calling for us to open a David Tlale branch over in Cape Town, so what I am working on right now—while I watch the progress at my Johannesburg store—is to expand within The Bromwell,” he states.
With prices at the store ranging from anything between R1,200 ($150) for a blouse to R8,000 ($1,000) for an evening dress, how does Tlale handle the general perception that one has to pay a fortune to afford a David Tlale piece, and does that hurt his business in any way?
“I get a lot of that kind of reaction. People generally think that it takes a right arm, a leg and a kidney to afford one of my garments, and that’s not necessarily true,” he says.
Tlale’s deep-pocketed clientele pay more than R25,000 ($3,150) for a custom-made couture piece.
I ask whether Tlale has male clients who allow him to put them in dresses, like he does the male models who walk the ramp for his fashion shows.
“My inspiration for putting men in dresses stems from the eastern culture that I totally embrace. And as a point of correction, those garments people see as ‘dresses’ are actually long kaftans. As an artist, I love pushing the boundaries and reminding people that fashion is art, it’s fantasy, and I do not believe in doing a show that will not give people something to talk about when they leave. I use my shows to tell a story, to give people an experience and to give the media something to chew on,” he says.
As one of the most publicized fashion designers in Africa, it would seem that the media and the press appear mesmerized by Tlale. The reports aren’t always rosy; there is talk of tardiness and “diva tendencies”.
“The problem here is that I am always the last designer to close off a season of Fashion Week. And what normally happens is that everyone before me is already running late, so by the time I’m supposed to come on and wrap things up, it’s glaringly obvious that everything is running two hours late and I get the flak for all of it,” he explains.
Whether or not you subscribe to Tlale’s over-the-top bling aesthetic and price tag, there’s no denying that he has indeed come a long way from the dusty streets of “Voslo”, and is inching closer to realising his dream of changing the face of fashion in Africa.
The David Tlale label is making waves at the respective fashion weeks in Angola, Nigeria, Ghana and Mozambique—the rest of the continent awaits to be conquered.
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Tag: Fashion

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