Podcast | Fashion Africa Now

The Fashion Africa Now Podcast ignites interesting conversations with designers, creatives, historians, researchers, fashion players and industry experts on what fashion in African is today, systematically digging into its past and more importantly, shaping its future.

#20 EPISODE 14 Juli 2021

Trade With Africa: Skander Negasi

Skander Negasi, CEO of Trade and Fairs GmbH, introduces us to the developing fashion and textile hub in East Africa. With manufacturing costs increasing in Europe and Asia, buyers are looking for new destinations. Following the successful launch of the Origin Africa trade show in 2012 in Ethiopia alongside US Aid, since then many international trade fairs, events & conferences within different industries, including textile, apparel and fashion have been organised. He is responsible for the biggest exhibition of this nature in Africa, the Africa Sourcing and Fashion Week (ASFW) in Addis Ababa. The ASFW hosts over 4000 exhibitors and 6000 trade buyers. This includes H&M, Hugo Boss, Mango, Zara and more; and of course smaller local boutique designers and craftsmen are included, as well as huge industrial factory equipment. The main trends Skander highlights are the digitalisation of goods, sustainable production of fabric, and the practice of African Continental Free Trade (Africans doing business with Africans). For many African designers keen to expand their retail horizons, we encourage listening to Skander’s global insights from a business and trade perspective, “Without investment you don’t get anything…this is the homework for African designers… to promote their brand and work with shops… if they always depend on supporters, then it’s going to be very very tough.”

Introducing Fashion Africa Now's Podcast Host

Meet Beatrace Angut Oola, founder of Fashion Africa Now and our F.A.N Podcast host. With strong credentials in fashion and the arts, working for some of the world’s esteemed fashion brands, our Ugandan-German host is also a speaker, curator, guest lecturer and founder of a creative consulting agency, APYA Productions. Beatrace ignites and stewards candid and untold stories of talent from Africa and the diaspora, as well as those shaping the sustainable fashion scene.

Introducing Fashion Africa Now's Podcast

The first episode of Fashion Africa Now Podcast will drop soon, and Beatrace Angut Oola will be airing every second Wednesday. Here’s a quick taste of what’s to come. Stay tuned…

About The Podcast

The fusion of rich and diverse sub-nations, cultures, ideas and talents from the African continent, and by extension the African diaspora has produced irresistible trend-setting fashion, styles, aesthetics, sounds and a way of life globally. Yet in the shadows of this allure the conflict between slow fashion, sustainability in Africa and fast fashion is a conversation to be encouraged.

“The Fashion Africa Now Podcast will be hosted by Beatrace Angut Oola, an interdisciplinary fashion curator and advocate, out of Germany. Beatrace has spearheaded the conversation around inclusivity, curated exhibitions in Europe and Africa and has also championed the best in class practitioners in Africa and the Diaspora, to name a few of her activities. read more

Fashion Africa Now Podcast is an inspiring engagement that also offers an academic exchange and strives for business relevant topics. An episode will be released every two weeks.

The podcast series will focus on the African fashion movement in the international fashion industry and the creators of fashion in this sector. Cultural diversity is reflected in the work of creative people and in their perspectives. Due to the interdisciplinary composition of music and design, the different cultures become visible and tangible. Themes such as “Deconstructing Fashion”, moderately discussed, offer thoughtful insights and narratives relative to the African fashion scene and the wider industry. It is a space for people who want to learn, support and understand the African fashion movement and its pop culture. We invite you to listen, share your thoughts and experiences, spread the narrative.

We are collaborating with Future Fashion for a special edition episode, “Future Fashion Made in Africa”. Offline our collaboration with Future Fashion extends to hosting events for networking, knowledge transfer, exposure, market access for textile startups from Germany and African countries. The aim is to strengthen the sector of sustainable textiles and promote international exchange. With the influx of foreign designers on the African continent and its Diaspora, the need to promote conscious African fashion has become imperative.

Through this podcast, issues regarding sustainable textile consumption and the textile value chain will be deliberated. We will bring different perspectives, critical output, personal values, strong convictions and ideas to live.

We offer more information about each episode on Patreon. We are part of the Patreon membership platform and offer episode descriptions with explanatory notes.

The F.A.N Podcast is supported by the Future Fashion project – a joint project initiated by the Development Cooperation Foundation (SEZ), of the state of Baden-Württemberg, which is committed to conscious and sustainable textile and fashion consumption.

The Fashion Africa Now podcast is brought to you by Future Fashion and produced by APYA Productions with financial support from the Ministry of State of Baden-Wurttemberg via the Baden-Wurttemberg Foundation for Development Cooperation (SEZ). The episode was created in association with Social Urban Nature. Fashion Africa Now podcast has the permission to use the music and the sounds created by Blackstereo music.