Impact Fund For African Creatives in collaboration with the African Fashion Foundation in Ghana and implementing partner Seedstars have selected their first cohort of 14 African fashion designers to join the African Fashion Futures Incubator.
The fashion designers joining this programme will receive training and grant funding. The incubator will equip new, up-and-coming fashion start-ups with the necessary skills and resources to create a brand founded on ethical principles regarding people, place, and profit.
According to Onyinye Fafi Obi, Project Director of the African Fashion Foundation:
The incubator aims to encourage peer learning and cultural exchange among its participants as well as to future-proof them and instil excellent operational and business foundations to ensure growth. The programme also seeks to produce sustainable and financially viable enterprises. while honing the business capabilities of fashion designers.
Kindly scroll below for more information on each designer.
Abiola Olusola
This is an eponymous contemporary women’s fashion house with a distinct fusion of structural cuts, sleek architecture, African cultures and craftsmanship. The brand takes inspiration from films, music, nature, vintage photographs and African mythology.
Aline Amike
A Rwandan accessories and clothing brand with an experimental and unconventional appeal, AM!KE (AMIKE) is a made-to-measure and ready-to-go brand. The brand draws inspiration from poetry, nature and culture. The production process specializes in handcraft techniques from different African cultures, aesthetics and notable figures from ancient Africa and tales from the continent, especially Rwanda.
Maliko
Nigerian artisanal luxury shoe and accessory brand, Maliko, led by Ebuka Omaliko, champions the value of the artists’ touch. Whether crocheted, embroidered, carved or painted, his thoroughly modern rotation of sandals, slides and bags feature mindfully executed artisanal techniques with a contemporary sensibility. Drawing inspiration from his interactions with the diverse people of Lagos, Nigeria, the designer distils the city’s kinetic energy into purist pieces with global appeal.
Cynthia Abila
Cynthia Abila’s designs seek to portray her local roots while exploring the idea of the travelling woman. With every piece, Abila strives to celebrate womanhood, culture, and sustainable craft. Made for women of all shapes and sizes, Abilia hopes to empower the modern-day boss lady through colourfully driven aesthetics.
Jermaine Bleu
Founded by Jermaine Asiedu in 2016, Jermaine Bleu is an emerging Ghanaian fashion brand. The brand presents an array of edgy yet modern looks. And individual pieces feature high slits, unique patterns, bold colours, pleats on flared pants and more.
ANKU
Anku is a sustainable Ghanaian fashion brand that uses local hand dye to manipulate materials and draws inspiration from nature to create artistic and wearable pieces that focus on the world’s beauty.
Pepper Row
Pepper Row is a new-luxury sustainable fashion Brand from Nigeria, founded by Omafume Niemogha in 2018. The brand is passionate about using fashion as a positive tool for social and environmental change whilst exploring, promoting and preserving the culture and age-old traditional craftsmanship of hand weaving and dying textiles, wood carving and hand painting.
PALMWINE IceCREAM
PALMWINE IceCREAM is a gender-skewed Ghanaian label led by designer Kusi Kubi who brings new life into secondhand garments sourced from Accra’s biggest thrift market. The brand incorporates cut-out tailoring, patched-together leather pants, asymmetric tops, and pelmet skirts. Signature flourishes of gold are seen throughout the brand’s line-up, in chainmail tops or eyelets hammered into hems.
Oríré
Oríré is a contemporary fashion brand committed to exploring artistic femininity through distinct artisanal craftsmanship and conscious production. Most of the pieces are produced in small batches at their studio in Lagos, Nigeria, while others are made on a made-to-order basis to eliminate excess and allow flexibility to customers by providing the option to personalize.
Atto Tetteh
Founded in 2014, Ghanaian luxury menswear fashion house Atto Tetteh is one brand with hard-to-miss designs. With a penchant for solid colours, abstract art and striking elements that reference a West African heritage, it’s unsurprising that the Accra-based brand keeps setting trends, season after season. Thanks to its signature looks and edgy clothing, Atto Tetteh is one of the brands featured on Zerina Akers’ list of Black Owned Businesses on www.beyonce.com.
VicNate
VicNate is a Nigerian contemporary fashion brand focused on celebrating youth and femininity in a way that bridges the gap between luxury and contemporary fashion. It transcends personal and social engagements to embrace an ideal that is simple, deliberate, and packed with youthful bursts.
Tabou
Ghanaian sustainable party and resort wear Tabou features vibrant luxury kaftans, stylish and comfortable ready-to-wear gowns and separates made with the uber-stylish woman in mind.
LARRY JAY
Larry Jay is a unisex Ghanaian brand with a unique and timeless personality living in a clean, diverse and progressive world inspired by nature, various African cultures and the arts. Their designs exude an understated style and emphasize “tradition and comfort” with details and innovations that echo the West African heritage.
AJABENG
AJABENG is a Ghanaian unisex brand birthed at the intersection of minimalism and contemporary African art and culture. The brand combines these two seemingly tangential elements to create an aesthetic that captures both the purity of minimalism and the vibrancy of African culture. Inspired by the flamboyance of traditional African womenswear, the do-it-yourself style of Accra’s streetwear scene and its bold geometry of art deco architecture.
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