Business of Fashion

The vulgarly contradictory nature of South Africa where their public speak of Pan-Africanism and rainbows does not match their internal policies and attitudes stymies their development. No postal system, xenophobic anti-African immigration, poor human resource management, and poor education halt any hopes of true development. Development is just political rhetoric for token gestures as a patina on failure. 

Traditional art forms are being destroyed today at an alarming rate, and we say this against the historical backdrop of culture is always changing, and like the Earth, things are created and things are destroyed. That is the natural process of things. The CD destroyed the record and the Mp3 destroyed the CD. In every instance, we lost something but also arguably gained something (but is that the case today, are we gaining something?)

SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media has altered our world. And sometimes that has not always been for the best. In 2005 when we made 500 Years Later things were actually better for us without social media. Now, everyone with 2 cents is in the same space as people with 2 million. So the entry-level for us in film was to own some serious equipment and produce serious quality content. That high bar in itself separated out who is who. If you did not have this equipment the notion of making content did not exist even as a dream. Now today people can

What we see a lot of in Africa is ego dominating ability. Someone is quick to apply grand titles to their name like Dr, scholar, filmmaker, web developer, director of photography yet not have those skills in a professional capacity. But how do those skills match up in the global world is another issue. 

In a Video by “Business of Fashion’ (link below), they went through all the steps to create branding, how to work with CMT, pattern makers, sample makers, etc, how to get funding etc. But what they could not help us with is how to deal with RACISM and the challenges unique to the African. 90% of the steps they teach are irrelevant to Africans. For one we just do not have that infrastructure. There is no item of clothing that we make, that will be sold in any major retail outlet in AFRICA, because all (yes all) of them are controlled by Europeans (physically or otherwise) who have Zero value for African clothes, especially those owned by conscious Africans. Despite talking all day about a “rainbow” . Do the fashion schools in Joberg teach you about dealing with racism? They teach Africans how to try to fit into a Eurocentric racist fashion world by crossing their fingers and hoping someone will exploit them as the “Next Black thing”. Do the fashion sho

In 2014, a handful of East African countries imported more than $300 million worth of secondhand clothing from the United States and other wealthy countries. The used items have created a robust market in East Africa and thereby a decent amount of jobs. But experts say the vast amount of these imports have devastated local clothing industries and led the region to rely far too heavily on the West

Long ago in the 60’s when Africans were starting to look for their true identity and wear authentic African clothes we had an opportunity to own what we wore and keep on going we did not do that. Actually, we have never done that. We did not do it with jazz nor did we do it with dance. We create wonder styles like Breakdance but let other people come and own them. African clothes is a dying industry — let us be very clear about that. I seriously doubt that post-Ocacia something else like us will come. Because the clothes are expensive to make, har

People often wonder why African clothes usually cost more than the clothes they buy on the high-street. And honestly, you can use your own thinking to figure that out. Something made in bulk for everyone will cost way less than something handmade just for one person.

If Black lives matter, then they should matter first and foremost to us Africans. And by matter, it means we should add value to our "Black" lives our African culture our African business