East Africa to the World Jokate Mwegelo Stars on our Oct/Nov 2017 Issue
The one thing I love the most about new covers is it’s all about a new start. A new cover always brings in new stories, new features, fashion trends, what’s hot, what’s not, the style stars, travel destinations and our cover star. Over the last nine and a half years, we have featured powerful names from the likes of Waje, Juliet Ibrahim, Lira, Bonang Matheba and now one of Africa’s brightest female leaders who is using her brand and platform to inspire a new generation of young female entrepreneurs: we are talking about Tanzanian actress, entrepreneur and business woman, the adorable Jokate Mwegelo. Check out the cover below:
Jokate is the CEO and founder of Kidoti, a fabulous East African brand that deals with the designing and manufacturing of various lifestyle items to suit primarily the African market. From fashion and beauty products, the Kidoti brand provides products of high quality but at affordable prices that match up to the needs of the growing African market. This year will make it 5 years since the brands inception and Jokate is all about taking it a step further by expanding the brands operations to touch across East Africa. The young star has been profiled by Forbes in their “Forbes 30 under 30, African edition” and was awarded as Malkia Wa Nguvu in the business innovation category by Clouds Media Group, Tanzania. Jokate has so much entrepreneur energy bursting through her that we had to get her on our cover this month to tell us about her incredible story. To read Jokate’s exclusive interview, check back with us on the 4th week of October.
Feminine and sexy are taking centre stage this month, in which our style team share with us the 20 hottest African style stars on Instagram. Our style star list includes power names like Boity Thulo, Eudoxie Bridges, Genevieve Nnaji, Kambua Manundu, Wema Sepetu and a host of other beautiful African women.
For our fashion editorial lovers, we have a short but elegant editorial feature this month for you guys. Like you already know, we love receiving submissions here at Zen so when Madelyn Rivera of Visuales de Vera’Sor emailed us about her collaboration work with Olayemii of olayemii.com, we immediately knew it was one feature we had to work on this month. If you love floor-length dresses, mixed with African prints, accessories and given an outdoor touch, then this is one feature you can’t afford to miss.
Jokate Mwengelo Chief Executive Officer and Founder Of Kidoti Brands
Jokate is the CEO and founder of Kidoti, a fabulous East African brand that deals with the designing and manufacturing of various lifestyle items to suit primarily the African market. From fashion and beauty products, the Kidoti brand provides products of high quality but at affordable prices that match up to the needs of the growing African market. This year will make it 5 years since the brands inception and Jokate is all about taking it a step further by expanding the brands operations to touch across East Africa. The young star has been profiled by Forbes in their “Forbes 30 under 30, African edition” and was awarded as Malkia Wa Nguvu in the business innovation category by Clouds Media Group, Tanzania. Jokate has so much entrepreneur energy bursting through her that we had to get her on our cover this month to tell us about her incredible story. To read Jokate’s exclusive interview, check back with us on the 4th week of October.
Feminine and sexy are taking centre stage this month, in which our style team share with us the 20 hottest African style stars on Instagram. Our style star list includes power names like Boity Thulo, Eudoxie Bridges, Genevieve Nnaji, Kambua Manundu, Wema Sepetu and a host of other beautiful African women.
For our fashion editorial lovers, we have a short but elegant editorial feature this month for you guys. Like you already know, we love receiving submissions here at Zen so when Madelyn Rivera of Visuales de Vera’Sor emailed us about her collaboration work with Olayemii of olayemii.com, we immediately knew it was one feature we had to work on this month. If you love floor-length dresses, mixed with African prints, accessories and given an outdoor touch, then this is one feature you can’t afford to miss.
Content Courtesy of Zen Magazine
African Fashion and Design Week Returns for the 6th Edition | Save the Date – October 13th – 15th 2017
Bluepearl Services International, organizers of African Fashion and Design Week™ Nigeria, New York and Los Angeles, is pleased to announce that African Fashion and Design Week™(AFDW) will take place in Nigeria from October 13th – 15th, 2017 at the Federal Palace Hotel, Lagos. After 5 years of success, this 6th edition promises to be even more awesome. Although the main event takes place during the aforementioned time frame, there will be a series of events taking place between July and early October - all leading up to the grandest fashion week Africa has ever seen! African Fashion and Design Week’s primary focus is to provide more retail access for designers to consumers globally, provide platforms for networking and celebrate the African fashion industry in general. The theme for AFDW 2017 is “Honour the Masters and Celebrate the New.’’ As the theme implies, the aim of this fashion week is to celebrate and pay homage to both veteran renowned designers, as well as new designers who show promising potential.
Here is an overview of events that will take place during AFDW 2017: 1. Business of Fashion Seminar: Offers the opportunity to young talents to learn the basic foundation of building a fashion brand and earn a sustainable living; and the careers that are available in the fashion industry. These seminars will take place in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, and Togo 2. African Icon of Hope Awards: Acknowledges designers’ outstanding works that has put the African continent on the global fashion map. 3.Bluepearl Rising Star: As part of BSI's commitment to fostering creative independence amongst new talent in the African fashion and design industry, Bluepearl Rising Stars is a competition in which the most creative and innovative designers selected will each present a much-anticipated capsule collection, before one of the young designer's is awarded the title of Bluepearl Raising Star and also given the opportunity to showcase during the New York Fashion Week. The prize also includes a scholarship to study Fashion and Design Technology. 4. Runway Showcase: Will feature collections from over 30 leading established and emerging African designers from 11 countries. For enquiries:
Website www.africanfashiondw.com
Phone Number +2348055479343.
Watch out for more details coming soon.
Content Courtesy Of EM
The Kenya Fashion Awards
The Kenya Fashion Awards is an awarding prestigious trade mark event that incorporates fashion, music, photography and art to create a magical runway experience and recognize and award the most talented in the industry.
photographers, models, stylists, make-up artists, marketers, retailers, choreographers, fashion & design students and fashion writers. A team of judges professionals drawn from the leading fashion giants, most renowned and respected fashion publications and leading figures in international style.
Overview: The Kenya Fashion Awards is a multi-days branded entertainment environment providing activities and opportunities for fashion designers, photographers, fashion stylists, fashion bloggers, models and sponsors to come face-to-face with the principal taste makers, celebrities, musical talent, media, investors and consumers during the Event.
Activities at the Kenya Fashion Awards include: Modeling Academy, talent search and training, workshops; Press conferences, private cocktail parties for sponsors, designers, fashion people, celebrities and entrepreneurs; Coverage and publicity by media and press; Exhibition of Fashion Photography, Designers and Exhibitors, Fashion Bazaar.
Content Courtesy Kenya Fashion Awards
fashion industry,
multibillion-dollar global enterprise devoted to the business of making and selling clothes. Some observers distinguish between the fashion industry (which makes “high fashion”) and the apparel industry (which makes ordinary clothes or “mass fashion”), but by the 1970s the boundaries between them had blurred. Fashion is best defined simply as the style or styles of clothing and accessories worn at any given time by groups of people. There may appear to be differences between the expensive designer fashions shown on the runways of Paris or New York and the mass-produced sportswear and street styles sold in malls and markets around the world. However, the fashion industry encompasses the design, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, retailing, advertising, and promotion of all types of apparel (men’s, women’s, and children’s) from the most rarefied and expensive haute couture (literally, “high sewing”) and designer fashions to ordinary everyday clothing—from couture ball gowns to Juicy Couture-brand sweatpants. Sometimes the broader term “fashion industries” is used to refer to myriad industries and services that employ millions of people internationally.
The fashion industry is a product of the modern age. Prior to the mid-19th century, virtually all clothing was handmade for individuals, either as home production or on order from dressmakers and tailors. By the beginning of the 20th century—with the rise of new technologies such as the sewing machine, the rise of global capitalism and the development of the factory system of production, and the proliferation of retail outlets such as department stores—clothing had increasingly come to be mass-produced in standard sizes and sold at fixed prices. Although the fashion industry developed first in Europe and America, today it is an international and highly globalized industry, with clothing often designed in one country, manufactured in another, and sold in a third. For example, an American fashion company might source fabric in China and have the clothes manufactured in Vietnam, finished in Italy, and shipped to a warehouse in the United States for distribution to retail outlets internationally. The fashion industry has long been one of the largest employers in the United States, and it remains so in the 21st century. However, employment declined considerably as production increasingly moved overseas, especially to China. Because data on the fashion industry typically are reported for national economies and expressed in terms of the industry’s many separate sectors, aggregate figures for world production of textiles and clothing are difficult to obtain. However, by any measure, the industry inarguably accounts for a significant share of world economic output.
The fashion industry consists of four levels: the production of raw materials, principally fibres and textiles but also leather and fur; the production of fashion goods by designers, manufacturers, contractors, and others; retail sales; and various forms of advertising and promotion. These levels consist of many separate but interdependent sectors, all of which are devoted to the goal of satisfying consumer demand for apparel under conditions that enable participants in the industry to operate at a profit.
Key sectors of the fashion industry
Textile design and production
Most fashions are made from textiles. The partial automation of the spinning and weaving of wool, cotton, and other natural fibres was one of the first accomplishments of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. In the 21st century those processes are highly automated and carried out by computer-controlled high-speed machinery. A large sector of the textile industry produces fabrics for use in apparel. Both natural fibres (such as wool, cotton, silk, and linen) and synthetic fibres (such as nylon, acrylic, and polyester) are used. A growing interest in sustainable fashion (or “eco-fashion”) led to greater use of environmentally friendly fibres, such as hemp. High-tech synthetic fabrics confer such properties as moisture wicking (e.g., Coolmax), stain resistance (e.g., 303 High Tech Fabric Guard), retention or dissipation of body heat, and protection against fire, weapons (e.g., Kevlar), cold (e.g., Thinsulate), ultraviolet radiation (Solarweave), and other hazards. Fabrics are produced with a wide range of effects through dyeing, weaving, printing, and other manufacturing and finishing processes. Together with fashion forecasters, textile manufacturers work well in advance of the apparel production cycle to create fabrics with colours, textures, and other qualities that anticipate consumer demand.
Fashion design and manufacturing
Historically, very few fashion designers have become famous “name” designers, such as Coco Chanel or Calvin Klein, who create prestigious high-fashion collections, whether couture or prêt-á-porter (“ready-to-wear”). These designers are influential in setting trends in fashion, but, contrary to popular belief, they do not dictate new styles; rather, they endeavour to design clothes that will meet consumer demand. The vast majority of designers work in anonymity for manufacturers, as part of design teams, adapting trendsetting styles into marketable garments for average consumers. Designers draw inspiration from a wide range of sources, including film and television costumes, street styles, and active sportswear. For most designers, traditional design methods, such as doing sketches on paper and draping fabric on mannequins, have been supplemented or replaced by computer-assisted design techniques. These allow designers to rapidly make changes to a proposed design’s silhouette, fabric, trimmings, and other elements and afford them the ability to instantaneously share the proposed changes with colleagues—whether in the next room or on another continent.
An important stage in garment production is the translation of the clothing design into a pattern in a range of sizes. Because the proportions of the human body change with increases or decreases in weight, patterns cannot simply be scaled up or down uniformly from a basic template. Pattern making was traditionally a highly skilled profession. In the early 21st century, despite innovations in computer programming, designs in larger sizes are difficult to adjust for every figure. Whatever the size, the pattern—whether drawn on paper or programmed as a set of computer instructions—determines how fabric is cut into the pieces that will be joined to make a garment. For all but the most expensive clothing, fabric cutting is accomplished by computer-guided knives or high-intensity lasers that can cut many layers of fabric at once.
The next stage of production involves the assembly of the garment. Here too, technological innovation, including the development of computer-guided machinery, resulted in the automation of some stages of garment assembly. Nevertheless, the fundamental process of sewing remains labour-intensive. This puts inexorable pressure on clothing manufacturers to seek out low-wage environments for the location of their factories, where issues of industrial safety and the exploitation of workers often arise. The fashion industry in New York City was dominated by sweatshops located on the Lower East Side until the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire of 1911 led to greater unionization and regulation of the industry in the United States. In the late 20th century China emerged as the world’s largest producer of clothing because of its low labour costs and highly disciplined workforce.
Assembled garments go through various processes collectively known as “finishing.” These include the addition of decorative elements (embroidery, beading); buttons and buttonholes, hooks and eyes, snaps, zippers, and other fasteners; hems and cuffs; and brand-name labels and other labels (often legally required) specifying fibre content, laundry instructions, and country of manufacture. Finished garments are then pressed and packed for shipment.
Although usually not considered part of the apparel industry for trade and statistical purposes, the manufacture and sale of accessories, such as shoes and handbags, and underwear are closely allied with the fashion industry. As with garments, the production of accessories ranges from very expensive luxury goods to inexpensive mass-produced items. Like apparel manufacturing, accessory production tends to gravitate to low-wage environments. Producers of high-end accessories, especially handbags, are plagued by competition from counterfeit goods (“knockoffs”), sometimes produced using inferior materials in the same factories as the authentic goods. The trade in such imitation goods is illegal under various international agreements but is difficult to control. It costs name-brand manufacturers hundreds of millions of dollars annually in lost sales.
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