Paris — Can Asanti become the first African fashion label to compete with the likes of Sandro, APC and BASH?
Rwandan-born entrepreneur Maris Mbonneumutwa believes the world is ready to be billed as the first African global brand, as she prepares to launch a contemporary label designed and built in Africa, hoping to bring back local fashion Will act as an incubator for the industry. ,
Mbonyumutwa, chief executive officer of Pink Mango, a multinational conglomerate with 23 years of experience in apparel manufacturing and production of promotional items, has worked extensively with factories in Asia, but was disappointed that the apparel industry was creating more jobs. was not doing. African continent.
Similarly, she was surprised that such a vast area has yet to build a brand for a worldwide audience. “I have worked for many brands in many different countries – France, UK, Germany, American, even the Japanese have Uniqlo – but I have never had a tech pack for an African global brand. Wasn’t,” she told WWD. ,
“This is a continent of 1.2 billion people who don’t run naked in Africa, so who dresses them? I felt there was a slight imbalance,” she said.
The executive, who fled the Rwandan genocide when she was 20 and now holds dual Belgian citizenship, is bringing her international expertise to the venture, and in 2019 set up a factory in Rwanda with her historic Chinese partner Which has created 4,300 jobs so far. ,
The facility produces outerwear for firms including the G-III Apparel Group; Spanish retailer Tandem; France’s Demartex Group; and supermarket chains like Tesco, Lidl and Aldi. This will serve as a springboard for the launch of Ashanti, a womenswear brand celebrating African heritage and craftsmanship.
“We are definitely not a fast-fashion brand,” Mbonyumutwa said. “We are a sustainable and ethical brand, and our position is more in what they call affordable luxury. But we are cheap in terms of price because we want the brand to be affordable on the continent as well.
maris mobonyumutwa
Asantii. Courtesy
The first collection celebrates the natural landscape of Rwanda with a palette of apricot, indigo and forest green. The graphic prints and embroidery make reference to an Adinkra symbol from Ghana that represents the “all-seeing eye”, as well as the Ashanti fertility doll. Materials include the traditional Faso Dan Fani cotton fabric of Burkina Faso.
The label’s website opened for pre-order on Thursday and will officially launch with a pop-up store in Ham Yard Village in London’s SoHo district on August 3. A second temporary location will open on 15 August at the interior design store Yasaro in Kigali, followed by a boutique in Johannesburg in September.
The Asanti collection, named after the Swahili word for “thank you”, is the product of a group of 15 designers from Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal. South Africa and Tanzania.
That geographic diversity reflects the vast amount of talent waiting to be tapped on the continent. Luxury brands have woken up to this potential, with the AZ factory choosing South Africa’s Thebe Magugu as their first guest designer, and the Karl Lagerfeld brand teaming up with Nigerian designer Kenneth Ise on a capsule collection.
Investors are also sensing the opportunity. Birmion, an investment company focused on African fashion designers, said in April that it was expanding its platform by partnering with Paris-based private equity firm Trail Capital, aimed at promoting the continent’s first-generation global luxury brands. ,
“Basically, what I was thinking is to invest in an African brand, and then see how we can produce for it and see if we can scale and globalize it. But I am in Africa. I’ve been exposed to a lot of brands in the U.S., and I’d say the majority have a problem: they all have amazing creativity, but then the problem really comes down to a matter of execution,” Mbonyumutwa said.
“The quality isn’t good, there’s no standardization, and they don’t have access to production infrastructure, so it’s very difficult to measure when you’re in those conditions,” the executive said.
“So the dilemma was, what do I do? I really want to support African fashion, but I don’t want to support mediocrity, because when you buy something, you’re going to wear it once, but you’re going to wear it once.” There are not going to be returning customers,” she continued. “It was like, let’s set up our own brand, and go through what they go through, and then we’ll be able to really identify what we’re missing on the continent to see some brands emerge.”
First, Pink Mango conducted an evaluation for each of the 14 labels on its roster.
They are Soraya da Piede; Uchawi by Laëtitia Kandolo; Richie Maya; Yefikir Design by Fiqirte Addis; Chloe Asam; Pelebe by Jacques Corner; KikoRomeo by Iona McCreath; Amal Belkaid; Amy Kasbitt by Emmanuel Okoro; Tony Grace; Sisters of Africa by Helen Daba; Ire by Natasha Jaime and Carina Lowe; Solitude by Anjali Borkhtaria and Martin Kadinda.
A look from Asanti’s first collection.
Asantii. Courtesy
Many of them have won awards and have strong local followers, but while the craftsmanship produced their garments in traditional workshops, there is a lack of information on how garment factories deal with them, Mbonyumutwa said.
“There’s a fairly large group that lacks a really basic fashion education, so we’re looking forward to partnering with fashion schools internationally,” she said.
“Between the creativity of the designer, what he has drawn on paper, and the garments you wear, there are so many other professions that are not available on the continent,” he said, adding that many of the designers in his group were not aware that there existed in the industry. About different tech professions.
Ashanti is helping designers with a production infrastructure and the support of a team in London drawn from the luxury industry. “While they co-create for Ashanti, they are learning skills, and when they are ready we will open up the entire Ashanti infrastructure to brands,” Mabonyumutawa said.
“My dream is to grow 14 brands to the level they want, because not everyone wants to scale. Some of them want to remain small brands, but they still need support for execution and product quality,” he said.
The London team is led by Vanessa Anglin, formerly Vice President of Product Development at Burberry, while the design studio is overseen by Anna Schmidt Risack, who has designed for brands such as Burberry, Bally and Alberta Ferretti.
Asantii plans to develop two seasonal collections per year. By the end of next year, the company plans to feature the work of four designers under its own brand as well as its own label to be sold online. By the following year, the label’s headquarters would officially move to Kigali.
“Today, we’re exporting 85 percent of our production, so I’m really hoping that in 10 years when you work in our set of factories, we’ll get 50 percent for Western brands, but not 50 percent for African brands. 50 percent are produced,” Mbonyumutwa said.
“Once we master the project in Rwanda, the goal is to replicate the Ashanti infrastructure – product development and production – in other countries,” said the executive, who plans to open units in West Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa. expects.
A look from Asanti’s first collection.
Courtesy of Ashanti.
He noted that although there is some textile manufacturing in the African continent, mainly in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania, factories were run by foreign companies, which tended to replicate conditions at their domestic plants. Mbonyumutwa placed orders for two years in Ethiopia, but quickly realized she wanted to do things differently.
“There was also a lot of social unrest and strikes, and I was coming from Africa, I could really see where it was coming from. And as I was discussing with my suppliers, who had Chinese management at the top in human resource management, I realized that they completely underestimated the importance of cultural integration, which is for me in a labor-intensive industry. Crazy,” she said.
Mbonyumutwa decided to start from scratch in Rwanda and a year later launched the Pink Ubuntu program, which works towards achieving six of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Workers receive one complimentary meal a day, and have access to a free nursery for their children. A factory store sells basic groceries at wholesale prices, and employees receive sanitary pads every month.
“We have two diseases that we would love to upgrade to a proper clinic,” Mabonyumutawa said. “We’re hoping to do that with the first revenue that Ashanti is going to inject into the program.”
Working in Africa is expensive, she said. The Asanti obtain cotton from Egypt and Madagascar, denim from Morocco and other fabrics from Burkina Faso and Kenya. While the EU and UK have no tariffs on exports, the African Continental Free Trade Area, which came into force last year, gives members up to 13 years to eliminate tariffs on goods and services.
“We really hope that this will be a reality and they can accelerate, because it is difficult to do business in intra-Africa now,” she said. For now, Asanti is sacrificing some of its margins to offset import duties in other African countries.
“Our ambition is to open Asanti to cities where designers come from Africa, and hopefully the West. After London, we’re hoping to be in Paris as well, and why not in the US?” Mabonyumutwa said.
“Our ambition is to be global, not necessarily massive in terms of volume, but in terms of visibility. We want to share all this wealth of creativity that we have in Africa,” she said.
Originally published at Pen 18
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