AFRICA GOES FROM TEXTILE WASTE DUMP TO CRADLE OF SUSTAINABLE FASHION

Until December 29, visitors to the Museum at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) in New York will find, in addition to the 50,000 garments in the permanent exhibition, an exhibition entitled Africa’s Fashion Diaspora: a journey through the influences and contaminations of African culture, or rather “of African cultures”, in fashion and contemporary society. The influence of African fashion is not just a phenomenon of the past: at London Fashion Week in mid-September, for example, designers from different areas of Africa attracted the attention of the public and industry professionals. In Milan, Afro Fashion Week attracts just as much interest, as does Africa Fashion Up in Paris. But along with the first African fashion shows of major luxury brands such as Chanel and Dior, the strongest message is sent out by the 32 fashion weeks that take place in the continent
each year, with an overall export value estimated at around $15 billion.



A SMALL BUT CONSTANTLY GROWING MARKET

There is also a rapidly growing domestic market, because as industry analysts are increasingly affirming, “Africans want to wear Africa”. Of course, the overall value of the continental market is just over 1% of the global market ($31 billion compared to the global market’s 2,500 billion), but we can’t ignore the fact that in just over a quarter of a century the African population, today made up of 1.3 billion people, will double. At the same time, the number of young people involved in designing garments is growing, often using traditional weaving techniques to create models that reinterpret the continent’s identities in the light of contemporary styles.

In October 2023, on the occasion of Lagos Fashion Week, UNESCO published a report, the first of its kind dedicated to the continent. Entitled “The Fashion Sector in Africa: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities for Growth”, it predicts a 42% increase in demand for African fashion over the next 10 years. The report confirms that the trend is driven by the desire for fashion made in Africa by younger people (half of the population is under 25) and the middle classes (which represents 35% of the population), but also by the ever-increasing digitalisation that facilitates trade and visibility for emerging designers. The UNESCO report has no doubts: Africa holds all the cards to become one of the next world fashion leaders, also considering the fact that “it is a major producer of raw materials (37 out of 54 countries produce cotton), an exporter of fabrics to the value of $15.5 billion a year, and an importer of textiles, clothing and footwear to the value of $23.1 billion a year”.



A BUMPY ROAD TO SUSTAINABILITY

There are obviously still some critical issues to overcome: poor protection for designers and other professionals in the sector, need for more support for the continent's network of small and medium-sized enterprises (90% of the fashion sector total), poor investment in training and skills transmission and, last but not least, the urgency of setting environmental standards.

“While the fashion industry remains one of the most polluting industries, Africa can make greater use of local materials, innovate around sustainable textiles, and raise awareness of sustainable consumption patterns,” the UNESCO report reads. Organic cotton fibre production in Africa has already increased by 90% between 2019 and 2020 and now represents 7.3% of global production. The second-hand clothing market is one of the most dynamic in the world, representing a third of global imports, but it still suffers from a lack of recycling channels, with 40% of these garments ending up in landfills or even in oceans and rivers.



© afrofashion.org



“ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES? WE’LL THINK ABOUT THAT IN THE FUTURE”

All data relating to the sector’s impacts in Africa must be analysed in light of the fact that it is a vast and highly diverse continent. Carbon dioxide emissions and water pollution, for example, are on average much lower than in other areas of the planet, but if you focus on Egypt, Mauritius, Morocco and Tunisia it is clear that the impacts are very close to those of mature markets and, at the same time, there is a greater awareness of the need to address and reduce them. At the 2022 UN Sharm el-Sheikh Climate Change Conference (COP 27), the Egyptian Ministry of the Environment presented the Green Fashion initiative, hinting at the interest which began in 2018 when 50 women got involved in the production of just over 60,000 garments, with an increased focus on environmental sustainability. And while one wonders how to deal with the climate challenge and the diminishing availability of water when efforts are underway to further increase cotton production, those in the industry interviewed by the team that produced the report showed little interest in the environmental challenges, merely stressing the need to monitor impacts only once the fashion industry in Africa has grown.



SECOND-HAND AND UPCYCLING ALLIES TO INNOVATE

But fashion and textiles “made in Africa” also pass through a sector as crucial as it is problematic: the second-hand sector. While on the one hand it has represented a significant environmental risk and continues to do so, the large quantity of discarded garments and accessories imported into various areas of the continent has had an influence both in creating an internal second-hand market and in guiding stylistic innovations.

Reuse and recycling of discarded clothing have given rise to economic chains and qualified skills in various areas: just think of the seamstresses and tailors, the stylists and fashion designers who redesign and alter garments and accessories, giving them a new shape and new lease of life. A particularly notable case is the accessories brand Suave Studios, which came about on the fringes of the largest second-hand clothing market in East Africa, Gikomba in Nairobi. The workers at Suave Studios transform imported garments and accessories into fashionable items that are highly appreciated by young people and others, attracted by the possibility of having “customised” garments at a non-exorbitant price and also by the environmental value of this choice.

According to Adwoa Owusuaa Bobie, a researcher at Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and author of the study “Customized Prèt-a-Porter: West Africa’s Answer to the Quest for Sustainable Fashion,” these forms of upcycling a garment or accessory – namely the creative reuse that improves its quality or value – strengthen the bond with its owner, who therefore keeps it longer. This is thanks to the fact that the garment’s designer often suggests hand-washing it.



DESIGNERS AGAINST THE DAMAGE DONE BY FAST FASHION

“What’s the answer to fast fashion? African designers look for solutions to a problem arriving on their doorstep.” Thus a recent CNN report brings together different experiences of people on the African continent who are trying to give a creative and purposeful response to the tragedy of large open-air dumps of textiles and accessories that arrive from Europe and other countries but often cannot be reused. Ghana receives 152,600 tonnes of second-hand clothing every year, almost the same amount of textile waste (160,000 tonnes, equivalent to about half a billion garments) produced in a year in Italy. They call them Oburoni Wawu, literally “dead white man’s clothes”. They arrive at the Port of Tema, the largest in the country, and in 70% of cases end up at the gigantic Kantamanto market in Accra, where 30 thousand people are ready to select them, wash them and extract the greatest possible value from them. But with disposable fashion, this value is getting lower and lower, so that highly polluting material often ends up dispersed in the wild or burnt. In addition to Ghana, the trade in second-hand clothing from the North is widespread in Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda and other countries. The increasingly poor quality of goods arriving from abroad reduces the possibility of a second life and amplifies the environmental impacts, while as already mentioned there is still no recycling industry in Africa that can recover the fibres. Greenpeace reports that in 2021, approximately 458 million of the 900 million used clothes imported into Kenya were worthless. More recent data suggests that between 20 and 50% of purchased clothing in the country is thrown away because it cannot be reused.

It is probably also for this reason that some countries such as South Africa are also trying to curb imports of fast fashion by increasing import taxes. And it is certainly for this reason that events such as the South Africa Fashion Week and Lagos Fashion Week gradually have more and more space for choices geared towards sustainability and minimising waste and impacts. Because while it is true that more and more Africans want to “wear Africa”, it is also true that fewer and fewer want to poison it and “steal” it from future generations.


Written by Raffaele Lupoli, editor-in-chief of EconomiaCircolare.com