Africa’s coolest fashion designers will soon have their clothes like

When you visit a chic shopping district, such as the Meatpacking District in New York or the Champs Élysée in Paris, you will find the most famous luxury brands of our time, from Chanel to Tory Burch. The vast majority were founded by white designers, with a distinctly Western perspective.

Amira Rasool thinks it’s a problem; its mission is to help African creators take their place among their American and European counterparts. Four years ago, she launched folklorea marketplace that selects the best African designers, such as Ahluwalia Where Thebes Weeds. But on September 7, the company is expanding beyond single-item sales and will soon unveil a new platform called The Folklore Connect that makes it easy for retailers to place bulk orders with these designers to put their clothes in front. new customers.

Rasool grew up loving fashion and once aspired to be a fashion journalist. But when she attended Rutgers University, she became interested in African studies and went to the University of Cape Town to pursue a master’s degree in the field. Over time, it occurred to her that she could combine her two passions. “I studied iconic figures like James Baldwin and WEB Dubois, those radical figures who dedicated their life’s work to the social and economic future of black people,” she says. “I saw an opportunity to amplify black voices and conditions by helping African designers increase exports from the continent.”

She began exploring budding and bustling fashion industries across Africa, identifying up-and-coming labels like orange crop and Andrea Iyamah from Nigeria, and Gozdawa House in South Africa. She brought them to The Folklore Marketplace, a website that allowed customers in the United States, Europe and around the world to buy these brands, taking an undisclosed commission. But she quickly discovered that it was difficult to drive enough traffic to the site to make a big impact on behalf of these designers. To reach a wider audience, she needed to connect them with bigger retailers – from Nordstrom to hip boutiques – who would carry their collections. “They already had a large, established clientele,” Rasool says.

But it turned out to be a complex undertaking. On the one hand, the trade infrastructure in Africa can often be difficult to navigate. Global payment systems like Stripe don’t work in many African countries, so designers can’t receive money in their local bank accounts. Then there are issues with shipping. While DHL and FedEx operate across the continent, it can be extremely expensive for individual designers to send packages overseas; even in the United States, brands and retailers get much better rates by sending large volumes of merchandise.

Rasool has spent the last year building The Folklore Connect, which provides all the business services African designers need to work with US and European retailers. Designers and brands can apply to be part of Connect. If selected, they will have access to an array of tools, including a shipping system that will allow them to receive up to 80% off shipping costs. Rasool says his team is selective about the brands they bring in; they focus on designers who have a strong point of view and create high quality products. Some of the brands she wears, like Rich Mnisi and Kendall Miles, are already very well known in Africa and are increasingly well known around the world. But with Connect, she also hopes to appeal to up-and-coming, lesser-known designers. and Southeast Asia,” says Rasool. “So we are now opening up our platform to designers from all those regions as well.”

In a way, Rasool is trying to create the type of luxury conglomerate that we have seen in Europe and the United States. The modern luxury industry was born a century ago in Europe when designers like Coco Chanel, Hermès and Louis Vuitton started making expensive and fashionable products. clothes. Some luxury brands have become more powerful by consolidating. Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH), for example, owns 75 luxury brands including Christian Dior and Givenchy. Kering owns Gucci, Balenciaga and 13 other brands. This allowed them to invest in the construction of new factories and acquire prime real estate. The Folklore is nowhere near the scale of LVMH and Rasool does not currently own either of these companies. Still, Rasool thinks there’s a lesson to be learned from large fashion conglomerates: there’s power in bringing luxury brands together and sharing resources and logistics.

While Rasool is committed to helping African designers grow and bring wealth to their communities, she also believes the fashion world misses out when brands have such a Eurocentric perspective. Many African designers incorporate traditional patterns, color palettes and techniques into their work, creating an aesthetic distinct from those of Western brands. There’s a lot of beauty that American and European consumers don’t have access to right now. “These designers combine their heritage and aspects of their environment in their work,” she says. “A lot of things are fresh and new to Westerners.”