STYLE: Designer wear on the cheap

From the moment #BuyKenyaSuperSale popped up on my radar, I was curious. Who wouldn’t want a piece of designer wear from Sh100 to Sh600? A three-day sale courtesy of Ministry of Trade at a convenient venue. The idea is to expose Kenyans to the kind of quality of skill, work and product available to them.

Judging by the queues that ran around the KICC block, this was certainly a delicious price point. It is also the first time ever I have seen many Kenyans line up for designer wear sales. EPZ does fashion in bulk for JC Penny, Puma, Wal Mart, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Victoria’s Secrets, Marks & Spencer to Phillip Van Heusen. We know our brands when it comes to fashion. But the appeal was the literally throw away price.

Still, I found this rather gimmicky and a rather strange way to draw attention to what locals do and can get. I have no idea what you thought but my initial reaction was “why so cheap?” Because low-cost-cum-affordable does not adequately encapsulate it. Phrases like “export quality clothing” and “brand new international quality” have been used to describe wares.

For one, EPZ clothing is tax and duty free because Kenya signed this deal: the African Growth and Opportunity Act grants us access into the US market. With the Donald Trump presidency, however, African states are on tenterhooks. Who knows what his unpredictable leadership will bring forth.  But for now, the deal holds, after renewal, till 2025. This counts for a whole lot with Kenya being the leading apparel exporter to the US.

ANOTHER SPECIAL THING

Another special thing about these clothes is Kenyans buy them anyway. Except we do so at the end of the cycle. Once they hit America, they wear them and they return as mitumba. It is peculiar that the 20 per cent of what EPZ exports will be sold in Kenya at such incredible prices, but this time it is a kind of reverse mitumba. We buy them for even less while brand new. But at what cost to the local textile and fashion industry?

EPZ has 179,000 fairly distributed staff allegedly earning salaries at Sh10,000 to Sh11,000, which EPZ workers have cited as too low, and they would be right. It falls below the wage bill. The government wants to inject the potential to employ another 100,000.

EPZ, evidently, has epic manufacturing skills. They churn out apparel by the thousands per day. With such explosive turnover these prices cannot even begin to compare to local designers. The latter have workshops averaging of three to five tailors, or 10 plus if you are Vivo Active Wear. Local designers cannot afford to sell their stuff at such prices. . 

#BuyKenyaSuperSale is a double edged sword. Technically, it is not really buying Kenyan. Not to mention the jobs created largely for women are at minimum wage. Where are the opportunities to be expansive with the local fashion industry? Or a seat at the table for the creatives and technology?

There are billions at play here, but it does little to turn Kenyan fashion into something big. So far government has come up with the option of some sort of EPZ pods where groups of designers could consolidate talent and work with a pool of EPZ technical skills. At the same time government could do with a sense of direction, which it is not receiving from any kind of fashion collective. 

Investors are coming in from Asia and the Middle East. Even so, textile manufacturing is still nowhere close to what it used to be in its glory days. Those wonderful days when textiles were the leading manufacturing activity in Kenya, absorbing 30 per cent of all manufacturing skills.

It is easy to target the government but truth be told, the fashion industry has to lift its ostrich head and figure out how to get in on this. It is your livelihood, and while it is made in Kenya by EPZ, it is not functional function designed for Kenyans, by Kenyans. That will not stop the round the block queues once the Super Sale show really hits the road.

In a nutshell

-Designers and/or their representatives need to sit down with the government and figure out how to grow the fashion industry alongside the textile one. Move. It!

-The government has to understand how so very critical textile manufacturing, design and technology is. Textile is obviously the future of the fashion industry locally.

-Tech is King. I am sorry but there is just no other way to say this. Either we are with tech, or against it. Or we might as well curl up and die already.

-Also, cotton. It needs those emergency electric paddles to resuscitate it. Only then can we begin to appreciate the inevitability and joy of bamboo as the future when it comes to textiles.

-Designers must help Kenyans find them, go to them, and buy them. Build the roads to your shop so they can come.

-Fashion institutions simply must upgrade their courses. If you are not teaching the most cutting edge textile technology you are asleep on the job. Wake. Up!