I.Coast fashion designers storm the international stage

Favoured by the likes of Beyonce and Aya Nakamura, Ivory Coast fashion is wooing the world stage, thanks in part to showcasing on social media. The creators, though, have no intention of leaving Abidjan to move abroad. Beyonce’s stylist contacted Abidjan-based Loza Maleombho after noticing her handmade creations on Instagram.

Years of back-and-forth ensued and in 2020, the US superstar wore Maleombho’s black and white print jacket, with its gold Baoule mask clasps, in her music video “Already.” Seventy million YouTube viewers saw the jacket in the clip. “It was truly indescribable,” the 40-year-old designer said.

She and other designers in Abidjan have conquered the international scene with distinctly African-inspired luxury garments. The bustling west African metropolis is a leading fashion hub in Africa where the industry is booming. The continent’s expanding middle classes are broadening the customer base for its designers and e-commerce is growing. According to Unesco, demand for African fashion items is set to rise by 42 per cent in the coming decade.

Maleombho – who has also dressed Beyonce’s sister Solange and fellow singer Kelly Rowland — started working with local materials because she felt African cultural codes, textiles and aesthetics were not represented in the international fashion world. Her favourite textiles include jute and traditional woven fabrics such as cotton Baoule pagne and cotton-silk Kita pagne, whose origins hark back to the Ashanti Kingdom that spanned Ivory Coast and neighbouring Ghana. Her creations are resolutely modern – elegant and anything but ethnic cliches. Elie Kuame — whose eponymous fashion house in the affluent neighbourhood of Cocody is about to celebrate its 20th anniversary — also champions African creativity.

Pagnes make up 50 per cent of all the fabric the high-profile designer uses. The skills involved in weaving these often colourful loincloths, traditions that are practised by several Ivorian ethnic communities, are recognised by Unesco as part of the world’s intangible cultural heritage. Kuame’s dazzling dresses are meticulously sewn, beaded and embroidered by the skilled hands in his workshop. But they are, he insists, definitely not “haute couture.”

That is an extremely specific, legally protected category of high-end fashion dictated by the French haute couture chamber of commerce.

“We have no desire to be certified by a French trade association,” Kuame said of the exclusive trademark, whose requirements are stringent, detailed and restrictive. Instead, he launched his own label of excellence — Born in Africa.

He also masterminded Abidjan Fashion Week, one of around 30 such platforms on the continent for African designers to present their collections to buyers, the media and fashion enthusiasts. He shows at the Paris and New York fashion weeks but has never left his home base in Ivory Coast for good. “My aim is to contribute to developing the industry here,” he explained. Like many other African countries, Ivory Coast still mainly imports finished goods, ready-to-wear fashion and second-hand clothes. Fellow Ivorian couturier Ibrahim Fernandez agrees African designers “are every bit as good as those on the international fashion scene.” Fashion, he told AFP, was Africa’s “soft power.”

His creations, and those of fellow Ivorian designers, range in price from several hundred to several thousand dollars. In a country where the minimum wage is around $130 a month, these luxury garments are inaccessible to most Ivorians.

The designers’ studios nevertheless provide jobs, highlight the country’s creativity and offer a sense of national pride. This summer, Fernandez exhibited his creations at high-end Parisian department store Galeries Lafayette, at an event celebrating African design.

He has dressed rappers Youssoupha and Black M and, in May, Malian-born Aya Nakamura, the world’s most-streamed Francophone singer.

Agence France-Presse