ISSUE 48/DEC2022 - Flipbook - Page 15
with the creative and cultural industries, fashion being
one of them. But the way I also saw it, is that there
was (and is) a way, we as Africans, can project our
culture, heritage, and creativity, to make money. And
we were not thinking about it that way. So back in the
day, we saw that a lot of big international designers
were utilising our ideas, our heritage, and our culture
to create things that they then put on a pedestal and
make huge profits by charging a lot of dollars.
And I was like, okay, how do we as Africans benefit
from this Return on Investment from our heritage
and culture? How do we build wealth from this?
Wealth that can transcend not just this generation,
but those to come. And just for us not only to make
money but also to be proud of our heritage and of who
we are as a people. And that is the premise on which
IFFAC was started.
get to that million. And that is what AFF is not
equipped to do alone, and we have therefore partnered
with a venture capital fund based in Switzerland,
which also has a presence in Africa. And we’re doing
this partnership with them so that they can run
the incubator programmes. So that’s under our
cultivate umbrella.
Basically, IFFAC is extending the work of the African
fashion Foundation, which is anchored on three
models: Convene, Collaborate and Cultivate. Let me
briefly explain each individually:
COLLABORATE: The Ambassadors Collection
And then we have our Collaborate arm, which is where
things like the Ambassadors Collective, fit in. Our
aim here is to bring creatives from different parts of
our continent together to create something, made on
the continent in unity, and project it both locally and
internationally. That is the whole premise on which the
Ambassadors Collective was set up,
So the Ambassadors Collection, which is part of the
pilot accelerator programme we have launched, has
brought together five incredibly talented African
fashion designers namely Adama Ndiaye (Adama
Paris brand) - Senegal; Elie Kuame - Côte d’Ivoire;
Adebayo Oke-Lawal (Orange Culture brand) - Nigeria;
Emmanuel Okoro (Emmy Kasbit brand) - Nigeria;
and Alima Bello ( Bello Edu brand) - Ghana. These
designers have with our support, collaboratively
produced a collection, which will be marketed in select
highend boutiques across Africa in 2023. We are now
looking into how IFFAC can support them even further.
The AFF has always collaborated with both big and
small institutions, to find ways to enhance where we
lack resources.
CULTIVATE
We started first with Cultivate which is really fellowship
and scholarship programmes. This has already been
set in motion with two scholarships. The Roberta
Annan scholarship at Conde Nast College went to a
lovely young creative — Damilola Odeyemi, who is
already attending the school; and we also have another
designer Michael Irabo Egerabwen, who is the recipient
of the Academia Costume Moda in Rome scholarship
and he started his studies in November. For us, it is
really about giving them tools to be successful, and not
just throwing money at them.
We have also kind of morphed the AFF into an
exposure-entry-point for the African creatives that we
have in our ecosystem.
The AFF has also been empowered by IFFAC to become
an actual incubator, taking in creatives (starting with
fashion) into a 12-month programme of rigorous
training including in infrastructure building - both
tangible and intangible infrastructure - and really
helping them to build the value in the business.
So it’s not like “I have a million followers on social
media, so I’m valued at a million dollars.” No, that’s
not the case. It is about how they should actually
create the building blocks that will enable them to
CONVENE
Finally we have the Convening arm which is our
industry retreats. We held one last year, and we
are holding another in the first quarter of 2023, we
therefore use all these elements and what the AFF has
put in place for the past 11 years, to build a premise
to assess the biggest challenges the industry faces. And
the big one is that of funding, an issue which, in itself,
raises a lot of questions. For example, how does one
get funding when they don’t even have infrastructure?
First, you need to have built infrastructure, incubation,
and aspiration, which is what the foundation has now
been empowered to handle. Then the second stage is
early-stage investment, and we are setting up the earlystage investment fund, with the assistance of IQ-EQ in
Europe , which is targeted at 30 million dollars with
three businesses warehoused as anchor investments for
the Fund.
We are also looking at all facets of the creative and
cultural industries on the continent. By that I mean
not just fashion. We have identified 16 sub sectors. But
where we also want to make a real difference is how
we can combine digitalisation with the creative and
culture industry.
And then of course we have the infrastructure ▶
So having done that, the issue many
have is how do people like yourself
— champions of the African creative
industry, to go beyond the fashion
aesthetics, in order to capture the entire
creative industry’s ecosystem? How will
IFFAC play its role here. How will the
investment work?
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Dec 2022 New African Woman
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