Vogue’s First Fashion Week in Africa Highlights Renewed Interest in the Continent

For the last 20 years, designers have been heavily mining African influences. Ralph Lauren took his empire to a new level in the ‘90s presenting khaki separates and fragrances in the context of African safari, even as Dolce & Gabbana’s Spring 2005 collection referenced Irving Penn’s portraiture of indigenous African costumes. But designer and cultural fascination with African-influenced style seems to have reached fever pitch in the last year.

The style blogosphere had a collective orgasm when Beyoncé stepped out with daughter Blue Ivy, rocking box braids and a tribal-print romper; even as the same reporters faithfully chronicle Solange Knowles’ penchant for Afro-luxe looks. Often sporting headwraps and eclectic African prints, Beyoncé’s younger sis, in particular, has led the curve of celebrities and style stars that have embraced Continent-chic. From Anna Wintour to Lady Gaga, Afrique c’est chic.

Mass-market retailers like Aldo, and indie labels like Boxing Kitten and Suno have celebrated the trend too even as Burberry’s Spring 2012 collection featured ankara-reminiscent prints in contemporary styles that would fit in the closet (nevermind the budget) of the same customer who would patronize African designer brands like Duaba Serwa, Christie Brown, Jewel by Lisa, and Kiki Clothing.

Accra-based designer Titi Ademola, who owns Kiki Clothing, welcomes the newbies seeking a new market in Africa. Once a newbie herself, Ademola says she left America where she worked in Burberry’s Atlanta office helping style clients like Elton John and Toni Braxton because she wanted to mine the immense opportunity available on the Continent. Raised in Nigeria, the London College of Fashion grad says, “I always knew I wanted to start a business in Africa.”

Not surprisingly, Ademola who has spent the past nine years building Kiki Clothing is enthusiastic about all the recent global attention. “It’s exciting to see Jewel by Lisa patronized by Cat Sadler of E! News.”

Ghanaian womenswear designer Nelly Hagan-Aboagye echoes Ademola’s excitement. Scheduled to show her line Duaba Serwa on GFDW’s opening day, she believes the platform will not only help her make a deeper connection with her customer, but set a new standard for the African fashion industry to follow. “It’s going to set the pace for all the other platforms that are springing up in Ghana.”

But with all the giddiness surrounding the attention being lavished on the Continent’s sartorial promise, it’s hard to ignore the “Let them eat cake” vibe associated with bringing the rarefied world of fashion shows to a continent plagued with poverty and joblessness. The average Ghanaian earns $3100 a year—and that is among the highest in West Africa.

Fashion is an acutely luxurious pursuit in Ghana in particular. With ready-to-wear shops few and far between, paid patrons on the hunt for style pamper themselves with custom-made looks. Most consumers can only afford to shop “Obroni Wawu” or “white man’s deads” in Ghana’s “bend down boutiques”—slang for the bins of secondhand clothing items (usually donated by America- and Europe-based relief organizations) customers have to bend down to sort through.

Meanwhile, those who can afford to pick up what is colloquially known as a “half-piece,” or six yards of fabric, at prices ranging from 25 Ghana Cedis (about $13) for imitation Chinese prints to 200 Ghana Cedis and more for luxe Vlisco wax prints; then collaborate with their preferred tailors and dressmakers to copy pieces featured in catalogs and magazine editorials, or design something all their own.

Accra-based seamstress Mary Squire Beumer confirms, “In Ghana, we like to make clothes to the occasion. We don’t like buying… We sew [custom pieces] more than we buy clothes.” This custom work comes at costs far below international market rates with designers conducting multiple fittings for anywhere from 25 to 1000 Ghana Cedis—or $12 to $500.  For this reason, Ademola decided to go the opposite route with Kiki. “I wanted to introduce that concept of ready-to-wear/off-the-rack.”

But it takes capital to launch a ready-to-wear business. Nii Ampem Darku Thompson operates his tailoring business out of his Accra home and enjoys a relatively steady stream of clientele. He says his clients have been telling him to sew ready-to-wear designs for them. The problem is, he would have to front the money for the fabric.  “It’s just the financial problem; that’s the problem,” he explained over the phone. He’d also have to get more sewing machines and employ more workers to sustain such a business. Beumer agrees, the risk is not worth it to her right now. “Sometimes the [ready-to-wear] product doesn’t move fast.”

And as much as infrastructure is improving in Africa, challenges remain. “[Poor] manufacturing. Unavailability of department stores that buy from designers. Resistance of designers to come together to produce collections and generally work as a unit,” were among the hurdles Ghanaian designers still have to clear, according to an email from Hagan-Aboagye. Sporadic electricity outages and water shut-offs increase the cost of business too, as proprietors must factor the cost of a generator and supplementary water into their overhead.

Additionally, because staff have potential to make incrementally more money going out on their own, Thompson says high turnover also presents a stumbling block to growing one’s business.  “When you start to show them,” he says referring to employees and apprentices, “two to three years [later] … they will make sure that they have to go on their own.”

Thompson concurs with Hagan-Aboagye that a support system is key, even as he lamented the lack of regular attendance of his fellow tailors at Ghana National Association of Tailors and Dressmakers meetings. “If you are doing something so that the thing should mature, they don’t want it.That’s why, always, we are going back,” he expounded passionately. The Association represents the interests of Ghana’s tailors and dressmakers before government and NGOs and trains interested candidates, including students unable to attend university.

Challenges aside, the global interest in African fashion is part of a refreshing flip in a centuries’-long narrative that has cast Africa as a dark and backwards continent. Ademola noted, “Back in the day, people felt sheepish to wear African-made clothing, but now with brands like Burberry using African prints, it’s different.”

The key is translating this global attention on Africa’s style strength into sustainable growth for the Continent’s fashion industry at every level. For Nora Bannerman, a CEO of Ghana-based Sleek Garments which exports to the US, Europe and other African Countries, growth means putting African countries “on the radar as an exporter.”  For Thompson, it means extending opportunities for exposure to Ghana’s tailors and dressmakers too—and not just those who can afford the $500 GFDW participation fee. (According to the General Secretary of the Tailors and Dressmakers Association, no one has contacted them about participating in GFDW.) For Ademola, sustained growth necessitates keeping pace with the spurt of opportunity and development happening on the Continent—long after Vogue’s GFDW and the attendant coterie of editors have left.

Ghana Fashion & Design Week will take place in Accra’s Movenpick Hotel October 5-7th.