In a small fashion studio in Lagos, designers and tailors are busy cutting clean lines between pieces of fabric. “Cotton T-shirts were the first product we produced,” says designer Oroma Cookey-Gam, co-founder of This is Us, which creates contemporary Nigerian designs using locally produced cotton, from oversized shirts to overalls and kaftans.
To source the cotton, Cookey-Gam makes a monthly trip to the Funtua textile mill in Katsina in the north, one of the few fully operating factories in the country. He then makes the three-hour journey to the Kofar Mata dye kiln in Kano, Nigeria’s oldest pit, where the fabric is hand-dyed in shades of indigo for up to eight hours.
Cookey-Gam had been importing cotton from Morocco and Turkey, but in 2016 he began a year-long search to source material in his own country. While two-thirds of African countries produce cotton, with some of the continent’s largest producers in West Africa, more than 81% of this is exported from sub-Saharan countries, leaving little to be used locally. A recent Unesco report warned that exports were harming economic opportunities by limiting the growth of the region’s textile and fashion industries.
“Africa is exporting something that can really create a huge industry and a lot of jobs,” says Ernesto Ottone, Unesco’s deputy director-general for culture.
Nigeria’s textile industry, like others in Africa, took off in the 60s and 70s but declined as second-hand and foreign-made clothing flooded African markets following a wave of trade liberalization policies. Now businesses like This is Us face major challenges sourcing ingredients.
Cookey-Gam says cotton gins in Nigeria are interested in bulk orders, so they are less interested in selling to fashion companies. “When we first went to the mill, they didn’t take us seriously. “They said they couldn’t work with fashion because the orders weren’t big enough,” she says, explaining how she partners with other brands to place bulk orders.
Designers who could boost African fashion are not understood by investors and policymakers
Alphadi, fashion designer
Global interest in African-made products has increased in recent years, driven by modern depictions of the continent in culture such as the Black Panther films and the explosion of Afrobeats. Prominent black names such as Beyoncé, Naomi Campbell and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie introduced the works of designers from the region and the diaspora.
Contemporary approaches to African fabrics and structures in fashion have been embraced by young people. Burkina Faso designer Sébastien Bazemo helped bring the colorful Kôkô Dunda fabric back into style. And now more than 30 fashion weeks are held on the continent every year.
“This is a season of appropriation,” says entrepreneur Omoyemi Akerele, who runs Lagos’ annual fashion week. “Before now, [the African fashion industry] “They’ve gotten a little bit Eurocentric in their outlook, but over the last few years creators and designers have been making more of an effort to communicate and re-emphasize who they are in a way that’s true to them and the communities they represent.”
“Made in Africa” movements have been successful in recent years, especially among the continent’s growing middle class, but African creators say their designs remain inaccessible to many on the continent due to the high production and import costs of basic textiles, affecting overall pricing. . This is Us’ clothes range from around 50,000 to 150,000 Nigerian naira (£50 to £150) and its main customers are Nigerian creatives and Africans in the diaspora.
Prominent Nigerian designer Alphadi (Sidahmed Seidnaly) is backing calls for African governments to limit textile imports and increase production of more than just cotton. While the visibility of the continent’s fashion is increasing, policy and investor support for the sector is still lacking, he says.
“The difficulty of being an African designer is not understood by the investors, buyers and policy makers who can take African fashion on the rise,” he says, referring to big European names in the fashion world. “People are betting on them, and that can be the difference between being successful or not successful in this industry.”
Despite being one of the fashion pioneers of the continent, the designer, who runs his business in Niger’s capital, Niamey, as well as in Ivory Coast and Morocco, says that he had to invest a large portion of his own money to continue his business.
African fashion investors say investments in individual designers are common, but financiers and policymakers fail to address structural issues such as local production capacity for the sector to thrive. They say investments without such measures can only lead to short-term success rather than sustainable businesses that can be grown.
Roberta Annan, founder of the Impact Fund for African Creatives (IFFAC), an organization that invests in creative businesses across Africa, says: “[We need to] “Look at creating the infrastructure and providing development capacity for designers to access different textile products locally.”
IFFAC supports sustainable fashion businesses with grants and investments of up to £1.7 million to develop the sector. It recently purchased a previously state-owned factory in Ghana to increase local textile production capacity. Designers say such measures can be transformative.
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“African fashion is still very young and we need it. [various] “It’s the elements that are needed to do everything at high quality,” says Cookey-Gam. “Fashion employs a lot of people and is a tool we can use to make a difference in people’s lives. “It could change the continent.”