#AFWk Fundraiser

It is such a blessing that today the international community takes pride in aligning itself with Africa especially with the music and fashion.

Nothing feels better than to see foreigners proudly were African fashion and highlight it daily to the point the hashtag #AfricanFashion is trending. But African people, especially in Ghana, are benefiting the least from this said culture. And through this emerges Accra Fashion Week.

As FashionGHANA.com we have watched, supported, filmed, been a part of, and attended fashion shows around the continent of Africa. It is beautiful to see the developments we have made since the early days of small fashion shows in small halls. All these efforts are admired, however it is time to push the bar further from where we have reached.

Today despite the glitz and glamour and the immense trending of “African Fashion” the truth is most of what we see provides not so much economic benefit, or not as much as it possibly could to the nation it is aligned with. The illusion of African fashion beholds the African prints we so strongly admire. But this is a market dominated by China and Holland. Accra is simply the popular location that hosts the prints which are imported from the two countries. A fact that become a reality as we once proudly produced the prints in our own factories.

Despite over 100 tonnes of African prints being imported from China to Ghana, now over 10,000s of Ghanaians are jobless in the clothing sector due to the closing of our print companies. And the few batik (african print fabrics) struggle to survive due to competition prices from China.

If you think it ends there with the struggle of African fashion, you should be enlightened to know only about 3 boutiques across the whole country stock clothes by our designers. So we have a major disconnect from the batiks to the designers, and from the designers to the boutiques. Hence why this edition of Accra Fashion Week would be dubbed ‘From The Batik To The Boutique’. This slogan embodies and captures the two disenfranchised and most important elements of our fashion industry, the use of our own batiks and the nature of products in our boutiques.

The problems faced is not an easy one to get ahead of. The reason why Batik manufacturers can not develop is because they can not out price the fabrics from China, and the reason why they can’t do this is because they do not make enough sales to balance the production costs.

A very similar reality to why our designers are not stocked in our boutiques. They also can not out price the clothes from the foreign markets, and the reason why is they do not produce that many amount and if they did they might not have the clientele.

The only way to over turn this reality is to hold a central event, such as Accra Fashion Week, where designers will be encouraged to use their local made batiks, and boutique managers would be encouraged to buy clothes from the designers they see on the runway. If this process amounts to much sales, the designers would be able to attend productions houses and produce in larger amounts for their clients, and considering they are using the batiks, they could now buy the batiks in larger numbers which will also help the batik producers out price their China competitors.

In all cases, we can not restrict the talents on what they should and should not use, however, we can encourage them by deals, and promotional offers.

With this initiative, Accra Fashion Week can elevate the current compelling situation for fashion employment in Africa and inspire many events to work this way.

FashionGHANA.com being the central voice and most popular media for African fashion intends to ignite a formula of fashion buying in Africa via Accra Fashion Week by ensuring the presence of fashion buyers and local boutiques who will pay down a deposit for purchase ahead of their attendance. Assuring them they will be displaying products solely made for international buying purposes.

We are currently partnering with local production houses and Ghanaian textile producers. Designers will be pardoned of certain costs or given offers for our fashion week if they chose to use fabrics from the local tailors. Local fabric companies will also be given advantages to showcase, host or sponsor shows within our fashion weeks free or at very low rates compared to others. Ensuring designer are made to do use local textiles it will encourage batikers and more artisans as well as create employment in this sector.

WHAT WE REALLY NEED:

Raising $30,000 will help us require the minimum amount needed where some expenses will need to be cut down via gifted sponsors.

Raising $60,000 is the ideal goal. This will ensure we have enough funds to execute the event irregardless of financial sponsors.

Raising $90,000 will not only allow us to implement a successful first event, it will also help us ensure the staff members who work tirelessly to make it happen are rewarded for their months of stress to come, and also help us fully integrate locally made batiks by pre purchasing their fabrics for the various local designers whom at times are subdued by the Chinese imports due to cheaper costs.