PARIS — Galeries Lafayette is celebrating African fashion designers, as the continent gears up to launch the Pan African Fashion Alliance, a new public-private partnership designed to facilitate sourcing, develop skills and grow capacity to encourage trade both domestically and internationally.

The French department store chain on Wednesday opened a pop-up store on the third floor of its flagship on Boulevard Haussmann in Paris. Set to run until July 8, “Africa Now” features 12 brands selected in partnership with three organizations.

Among them is the Creative Africa Nexus, or Canex, a program that supports the region’s creative and cultural industries. It’s the brainchild of the African Export-Import Bank, or Afreximbank, which in 2021 launched the Canex Presents Africa platform for emerging fashion designers.

It has showcased prominent brands including Thebe Magugu, Tokyo James, Lagos Space Programme and Lukhanyo Mdingi via several initiatives, including an ongoing partnership with Tranoï in Paris. Four of the labels that took part in the September edition of the trade show were selected for the galeries-lafayette event.

Khanyi Mashimbye, manager, intra-African trade and export development for creative and cultural industries at Afreximbank, said it was the most important retail initiative to date for the program, which has raised its visibility via the Met Gala and a recent residency at Angelina Jolie’s Atelier Jolie in New York City.

“We’re extremely excited and very hopeful for the future, because we think that this is a model that could really work in integrating African fashion. So if we’re successful at Galeries Lafayette, I would love to then maybe see, can we do it with Bergdorf Goodman? Could we do it with Bloomingdales?” she told WWD in an interview.

The team headed by Alix Morabito, general buying and merchandising director for womenswear at Galeries Lafayette, chose brands with a sustainable bent from the Canex stable. They are Morocco’s Late for Work; Boyedoe from Ghana; British-Nigerian brand Wuman, and Kenyan jewelry label We Are NBO.

In addition, Adama Ndiaye, the founder of Dakar Fashion Week in Senegal and Black Fashion Week events worldwide, will present her Adama Paris label. She also selected Ivorian womenswear label Ibrahim Fernandez, as well as Sisters of Afrika clothing and Nene Yaya accessories, both from Senegal.  

Finally, Africa Fashion Up, a showcase for African designers, is fielding Nigerian brand Banke Kuku; Algueye from Senegal; Ivorian clothing brand Bandama, and Senegalese designer Collé Sow Ardo.

Untapped Potential

Recognizing the vast untapped potential of Africa’s creative industries, Afreximbank doubled the Canex budget to $2 billion for the 2024-2027 period, and recently unblocked an additional $1 billion for a separate film fund.

“The bank realized that most financial institutions were not paying attention to this sector and decided to be a pioneer in terms of being the major financial institution that is focused on supporting the development of an ecosystem,” said Mashimbye.

At this year’s met-gala, Canex helped Ozwald Boateng dress celebrities including Jaden Smith, Burna Boy, Issa Rae and Colin Kaepernick in celebration of the “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. It also supported the Savile Row tailor’s May residency at Atelier Jolie.

While a series of private sector players have stepped up in recent years to fund the growth of African fashion labels, many of the initiatives have faltered. Mashimbye said it was time for the public sector to play a bigger role in helping the industry.

“Government support is so critical in terms of success for such initiatives,” she said. “It’s about building an ecosystem that will be able to be supportive, that will be protective, and also that will help the creative industries become more profitable on the continent.”

The market value of clothing and footwear in sub-Saharan Africa alone was estimated at $31 billion in 2020 and is set to continue growing every year, according to a UNESCO report published in 2023.

The United Nations’ cultural organization estimated that Africa’s fashion industry has the potential to increase the continent’s prosperity by 25 percent, but said the sector must overcome hurdles including a lack of investment and infrastructure, patchy intellectual property legislation and high fabric sourcing costs.

To tackle some of those issues, Afreximbank is joining forces with the International Trade Center, based in Geneva, to establish the Pan African Fashion Alliance, a cooperative that will group African fashion brands, financial institutions and private sector players, including manufacturers.

“We’re expecting to launch it at the end of this year,” Mashimbye said. “We’ve made massive strides in laying out the groundwork for it. It will be really quite a revolutionary step for the African fashion industry.”

The alliance will help African fashion brands with everything from financing to sourcing, production, logistics and payments. It will also act as a one-stop shop for brands looking to source goods in Africa.

Open for Business

Cotton is a major crop, produced in 37 out of 54 countries on the continent. 

In a bid to switch from raw commodities to more value-added exports, Afreximbank has partnered with industrial platform developer and operator Arise Integrated Industrial Platforms to build industrial parks focused on textile and garment production in Benin and Togo, with additional sites planned in Nigeria and Kenya.

The bank also wants to boost intra-African trade by leveraging the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement to reduce freight costs and non-tariff barriers, and harmonize product standards.

For instance, its transit guarantee plan establishes a single bond for products shipping across multiple countries within Africa, speeding up border checks and making it more affordable to transport goods.

“Consider someone who is maybe a handbag designer, who is sitting in Kenya and is currently importing their leather either from Italy or from China, when they could be getting it from South Africa. This initiative helps with that because over time, people will understand that it’s actually cheaper to get to your raw materials from the continent,” Mashimbye explained.

Many of those deals will get struck at the upcoming Intra-African Trade Fair, to be held from Sept. 4 to 10 in Algiers. Trade agreements worth $42 billion were signed during a similar weeklong gathering in Egypt in 2023, Mashimbye noted.

Access to market is a key pillar of Afreximbank’s efforts to industrialize the continent.

“It’s very difficult for African creatives to participate at Paris Fashion Week, New York Fashion Week, because the costs are quite inhibitive, with euro- and dollar-based currencies that they have to compete at,” she said, adding that lack of information is another hurdle to entry.

Canex Presents Africa has worked with 90 designers to date and will soon announce 35 new participants, following a call for applications that drew more than 800 entries.

Of these, 15 will have the opportunity to present their creations at Tranoï in Tokyo on Sept. 3 and 4, and 20 designers will exhibit their collections at Tranoï in Paris from Oct. 2 to 5.

“There’s so much movement in the world right now, and there’s a great temptation for people to be protectionist. I think that what Africa offers is an opportunity for exploration, because it’s probably the only continent that has not necessarily been explored for what it has to offer, except for our commodities,” Mashimbye said.

“We’re doing the necessary work to be ready to take on the demand from the world. And of course, it’s not perfect. It’s always a work in progress, but Africa is ready, and Africa is open for business,” she said.