Looking back, Looking foward- 2013 The Year Of Fashion MADE in Africa

So we are coming to the end of 2012 and looking back we firstly go back to our Fashion Prediction article and it is interesting to see how this year has truly become Fashion’s Year of Africa.

LOOKING BACK

With our African Cotton Slogan Tee-shirt campaign launching on the catwalk at London Fashion Weeks Vauxhall Fashion Scout in February, with Arise magazine bringing a whooping 77 designers to their fashion week in March – to which was attended by the Guardian and Drapers, Hub of Africa fashion week launching with USAID in April, our founder Jacqueline Shaw as a panel speaker on “Africa Eco” discussion at Africa Utopia at London Southbank during the London Olympics this summer, and also a speaker at Bahar dar University in Ethiopia. Along side this fashion shows Africa Fashion Week London and New York all got bigger this year and more successful.

Omoyemi Akerele of Style House Files brought designers to Pitti Imagine in Italy and then showcasing Matthew Williamson at her October show of Lagos Fashion and Design Week – of which was attended by NY Times Suzy Menkes and an abundance of international buyers, she went on to work with Selfridges to launch a Nigerian designer pop up shop in London’s Selfridges store. Then there was our mammoth research trip to 6 African countries in October, our tees launching on the catwalk at Ghana Fashion Week and Africa Fashion Week Los Angeles. We cant forget the wildly spoken IHT Luxury Conference in Rome titled the ‘Promise of Africa’ bringing Africa to the international fashion scene and changing perceptions.

Our successes included being recognised by the Guardian newspaper online for being one of the top10 African fashion websites and more recently being recognised as a runner-up in the Media category for Ethical Fashion Forum’s Source Awards. And not to forget the African launch of our Fashion Africa Seminar held for the first time in Nairobi, Kenya!

And this is all to name a few things this year. Wow it has been a fantastic year.

LOOKING FORWARD

We predict that 2013 will see a revival of fashion brands sourcing and producing in Africa. For a rise of Inclusive Business Models to take over business strategies. With projects like the International Trade Centre’s Ethical Fashion Africa initiative having just launched in Ghana after its successes in Kenya, we predict that more international brands will be seeking ways of connecting with artisans, crafts people and producers on the continent to add to their CSR strategies and to seek a new way of doing things.

As we have reviewed a few times this year there are more African fashion boutiques opening online and this is highlighting the African fashion consumer as one not to be overlooked. Events, fashion shows, and the growth of African fashion designers at international trade shows and pop up shops shows that African fashion is taking off from the continent and entering new global markets. So due to this the African designers and those in the Diaspora will even more want to go back to the source of what they do….Africa….and look at ways to produce there.

Maybe companies large and small are seeing this as their way of “doing good” or maybe because they are recognising what Africa truly has to offer and its competitive edge but we predict there will be more trade with Africa in retail and fashion sourcing and manufacturing in 2013.