Light At End of Tunnel for Fashion Designers
Attempts to make fashion design viable and of international standards have often proved futile for Kenyans.
Juliette shows off Janet Nyakweba’s winning design in the first Redds fashion show in Kenya. Photo/ELVIS OGINA
And the premier Kenya Fashion Week started with so much promise in 2002 but, like other shows before it, fizzled out. Kenya is the second African country after South Africa to have held a fashion week.
The Fashion Week, whose aim was to promote Kenya’s fashion and textile industry and show the public the wealth of talent in the country, attracted so many international entries in the first year and 2003, but the 2004 edition at the Carnivore, Nairobi, was a disappointment. The whole thing wound up the following year.
Sue Muraya, the co-founder, was quoted at the time as citing frustrations of working with people who constantly undermined her, making it impossible for her to continue with the dream.
Lack of national designers’ organisations, internationally recognised fashion schools and materials for garments are some of the factors blamed for the flop.
However, right now there seems to a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel. Attempts aimed at reviving the fashion industry are being made, and the next three weeks should signal a bright new start.
Two great events are under way - the Redds Africa Fashion Awards (RADFA) and the newly launched M-Net Catwalk Kenya - the country’s first fashion TV reality show.
The beginning of this week was the deadline for receiving entries for the third edition of RADFA, and the judges straightaway got to short-listing the 10 semi-finalists from the thousands received in both the novice and the professional categories.
“We have received thousands of applications, and I can tell you that there are great designers out there just waiting for such an opportunity,” a RADFA judge told Review this week.
The panel of judges of the event whose theme is Afromagik, who include Ojay Hakim (African Heritage), Caroline Wahome (renowned stylist) and Sheila Harrison (Redds brand manager), officially handed over the semi-finalists’ garments to the RADFA-appointed seamstress who will prepare them for the gala night to be held at Nairobi’s Grand Regency Hotel on October 26.
The winner in the novice category will receive a Sh50,000 top prize, but it gets better for the lucky designer in the professionals category who will join national winners from Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia and Botswana in show casing their work at the grand finale to be held in Zambia in November.
The Kenyan winner will be looking to emulate the feat of Janet Nyakweba who, in 2005, emerged the best on the continent, bagging a $5,000 (about Sh325,000) cash prize and an all-expenses-paid trip to the Cape Town fashion week.
And as the RADFA judges selected the semi-finalists in Nairobi, the search for the Catwalk Kenya hit the road with the first edition being held in Kisumu town last evening.
It will take the M-Net production crew to Eldoret, Nyeri and Mombasa before winding up in Nairobi in a fortnight.
Although Catwalk Kenya comprises contests for models as well as designers, the amount of money up for grabs in each category is a clear indication that the emphasis is on the latter.
Winning designer
The winning designer will pocket $10,000 (Sh650, 000), which is double the prize for the winning model.
According to Joseph Hundah, M-Net’s director of operations for sub-Saharan Africa, in the regional auditions, 14 models and seven designers will participate in two boot-camps in Mombasa and Nairobi, where they will undergo training, but the eliminations will go on until only seven models and two designers are left.
The last party will head to Malindi for the grand finale. However, the fashion designers will sample what it means to get a continental audience. The participants will have the show aired all over the continent, and so will the grand finale of the RADFA in Zambia.
The Catwalk winner may expect to represent the country in New York, while that of RADFA will have the opportunity to work alongside some professionals and leading South African designer Sonwabile Ndamase of Vukani Fashion, which is famous for his “Madiba shirt” designs during the weeklong internship in South Africa.
As the Kenyan fashion designers wallow in the suddenly busy industry, perhaps what the next generation will get encouragement from is the fact that the organisers and sponsors of the two events are committed to seeing the projects through for the long term. Harrison’s assurance about this commitment is a boost to veteran designers and a motivation to budding and aspiring ones. M-Net’s Hundah echoes the assurance.
A welcome change
“We see a potential and I can assure you that we will see it through,” he pledged at a function to officially launch the M-Net initiative.
It is hoped that this welcome change will culminate in the creation of role models and mentors and also a competitive training curriculum for training schools, which should be tailored for formal as well as self-employment.
