Teaching designers to sew up business
New course will help fashionistas market and sell their products
Africa is home to 15% of the global population and to millions of snappy dressers, so it’s odd that the continent earns only 1% of the annual $3-trillion spent on fashion. Perhaps that’s because wealthy consumers think anything bearing a European label is infinitely more chic than a home-grown brand, while the mass market retailers import clothes from low-cost China. Getting Africa to claim a more equitable portion of the global fashion industry is a mammoth task and will depend on turning arty fashion designers into savvy business people. That’s the aim of Threads, a new entrepreneurship crash course created by the Nonzero marketing agency. "There’s an incredible amount of creative talent out there with an eye for detail and creating magnificent garments, but transforming that into a viable business model is the problem," says Nonzero co-founder Tania Habimana. "The creativity in the South African fashion industry is world-class — all these entrepreneurs really need is the vital sa...
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