African fashion finds home in Dakar

Dakar fashion week last month celebrated its 10 years with biggest lineup yet. Organizers of the event aimed to reach the heights of fashion weeks in New York and Paris while maintaining African. High fashion is not as new thing in Africa. According to Adama Ndiaye “the fashion had its own special quality.”

“We do one by one. We do not send it to the factory because we lack a big factory. This is a thing we’ve been doing forever.” Continues Ndiaye. However, like any other industry in the continent, African fashion is still developing.

To assist in make some milestones, Ndiaye started the Dakar Fashion Week. Ten years along, the event has drawn attention of industry notables from different parts of Africa and the entire world as well.

Originally, Marcial Tapolo from Cameroon came from Paris to participate for a 2^nd time. “Its like one of those high-class shows she’s trying to do a very sophisticated and rare fashion show in Africa.” Puts Marcial.

Despite the presence of international designers, most of the talent is local, in deliberate effort to showcase models and designers from Senegal. Arame Sarr is another person who has been attending both the Paris and New York fashion weeks, but in her view, “I prefer this one because I myself am a Senegalese. So for me, its one of the best because we can show to everyone in this world that fashion is great in Africa and it began here.”

Everybody should understand that fashion is not for people who can afford it. Fashion is like music, it’s like painting. Fashion makes you feel good and it’s the same here in Dakar” Diaye says.

In the marketing of 10^th year and confront the exclusivity frequently found in the fashion industry, the first show of the week was open to the public thousands of people came to the middle of Dakar to view different African fashion collections.

Since it’s entirely self-sustaining, the fashion week is a net boost to the economy of Senegal and fashion scene as well.