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African fashion is on a roll, but it’s a long way from unlocking its full potential. That’s according to a new report from Unesco, released today to coincide with Lagos Fashion Week (26-29 October).
The potential is immense, not least because consumer demand within Africa is stepping up. The African market is accelerating, says Unesco’s Doyun Lee, head of research and diversity of cultural expressions, speaking at a press conference on 18 October. “There is an expanding customer base at a domestic level [linked to] a rise in middle class incomes,” she says. “African consumers want to wear ‘Made in Africa’ and prefer wearing ‘Made in Africa’.”
The downside is poor infrastructure, lack of investment and limited educational and training systems. With very few international luxury brands present in Africa, Unesco highlights an opportunity for local brands to establish themselves as the market grows. “African luxury brands have an opportunity as first movers and as players who understand local tastes and aesthetics to ensure that the continent’s luxury spending goes towards Made in Africa,” says the report.
Africa’s luxury goods market is estimated to have generated nearly $6 billion in 2022, according to the report. A fifth of that is driven by high fashion, a market expected to grow annually by 0.79 per cent from 2023 to 2028, led by consumers ready to buy high-end fashion from African designers that aligns with their values, identities and aesthetic needs. Africa currently has a relatively small number of high fashion brands, mostly concentrated in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and South Africa, says Unesco. All have potential for significant growth. The strongest growth in high-net-worth individuals is predicted to be in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles and Zambia. The 2023 Africa Wealth Report forecasts a 42 per cent rise in the number of African dollar millionaires over the next 10 years, reaching around 195,000 by 2031.
Promoting creative industries
Building the continent’s fashion sector has become a strategic priority for Unesco to improve Africa’s Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) and drive economic growth. According to the report, the creative economy represents 3.1 per cent of global GDP and 6.2 per cent of all employment. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the garment and shoe industry was valued at $31 billion in 2020.
The report is linked to Unesco’s wider plans to promote creative industries. Unesco’s Mondaicult Declaration on Cultural Policies in 2022, supported by 150 countries, described culture as a global public good as part of a post-2030 agenda for inclusive and sustainable development.
The 84-page Unesco report is launched as major fashion houses and brands show interest in Africa. Last December, Chanel held its annual Métiers d’Art show in Senegal during Dakar Fashion Week — Chanel’s first show in Africa and the first-ever to be staged in Sub-Saharan Africa by a global luxury fashion house. In the same month, Dior staged its men’s pre-fall show before the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt. Beyond these high-profile events, the report highlights the broad scale of the textile and garment manufacturing industry. Egypt, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco, and Tunisia all produce goods, mostly for global mainstream fashion brands.
Outside of the continent, a number of events are shining a spotlight on African design, craftsmanship and textiles. Italy’s Afro Fashion Week Milano, which takes place alongside Milan Fashion Week, provides an international platform for emerging African, Afro-descendent and Afro-inspired designers. In Paris, the African Fashion Up initiative, launched by digital content platform Share Africa, has launched an incubator programme, backed by the likes of Balenciaga and Galeries Lafayette.
Opportunities, challenges for African fashion
A longtime impediment to development of Africa’s fashion sector is the lack of investment. Designers often look outside of the continent for support. For luxury and premium brands, the emergence of specialist investment company Birimian Ventures, launched in 2020, is promising. Prizes can also help: Nigerian designer Adeju Thompson, founder of Lagos Space Programme, says winning the International Woolmark Prize in May, worth AU$200,000 (£107,000), was a game-changer. “There’s so much I want to do right now in terms of scaling up my company, hiring more people and purchasing better machinery,” he told Vogue Business at the time.
Much bigger sums are required for investment in infrastructure, such as to help process raw materials such as cotton. Another pain point is limited data and resources. Without accurate data, it’s difficult to measure growth within the creative industry and understand how it is contributing to the wider economy. Unesco is exploring how to better document the evolution of the fashion industry — the report in itself represents a starting point.
Improved digitalisation across many African countries has made it easier for businesses to operate via online and social media channels. E-commerce penetration in Africa rose from 13 per cent of consumers in 2017 to 28 per cent in 2021, enabling brands to access African consumers as well as connect with the international markets.
The wider sustainability goal
Fast fashion’s impact on Africa remains a major challenge. The African continent receives a third of all secondhand exports, which have an inevitable impact on local ecosystems and creation. According to the report, imported secondhand clothes are taking a heavy portion of the domestic fashion market away from local designers and businesses. “Fast fashion has produced and continues to cause disasters both in countries that produce fast fashion but also in Africa,” says Toussaint Tiendrebeogo, secretary of the Unesco 2005 convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions.
There’s no easy solution, says Tiendrebeogo. “On the one hand, this concerns fashion, but also trade… The best way to limit the export of clothes waste in Africa is to make sure these clothes are not imported by Africans. [But] it’s hard for governments to ask for a slowdown of trade of secondhand clothes because this impacts the trade agreements they may have signed with partner countries.”
Back in 2018, Rwanda increased tariffs on imported secondhand clothing but was subsequently suspended from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). However, Rwanda improved its textile exports, valued in 2020 at $30.4 million to the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone.
Unesco acknowledges it has plenty of work to do. “Once this report has launched, we will sit together — because we are trying to revise all the data collection,” says Ernesto Ottone, Unesco assistant director general for culture. By 2025, he says, more detailed information will be available on how to make the African fashion system prosper.
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