Swahili Fashion Event Bursting Forth into Business

Celebrated couturier, Mustafa Hassanali, introduced the Swahili Fashion Event 2010 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The event is in its third year, becoming more influential and interesting as a platform to showcase regional designers.

The event is fundamental to growing the East African fashion industry by exploring the culture of Swahili in fashion and functioning as a business platform for designers and fashion entrepreneurs to sell garments and goods. Entrepreneurial designers can display and sell their products during the week of the exposition, creating awareness for locals about the skills and available fashions on the market in order to expand their own economy.

The event aims at expanding to an international level and reaching out to the market of East Africans living in the diaspora. Designers from neighboring countries are provided the opportunity to network and initiate crossing their markets, with different countries selling the labels of other countries in their shops. The main purpose of the show is to expose designers and offer them a platform to display their work where there previously was none.

Through this event we are shown how markets are crossing the borders in East Africa amongst the Swahili countries when it comes to fashion. This event is important to Africa as defining fashion as a growing economy that can enter into both the local and international market. Constituting itself as an event that not only presents shows, but also provides the opportunity to sell and trade garments and collections, the Swahili Fashion Event has established itself as a great business and fashion entrepreneurial platform.

Director of the event Mustafa Hassanali says his reason for organising it is to transform East Africa into an important contributor to fashion globally. It addresses issues of difference in African fashion, as well as the need of the diaspora to connect to their culture through African fashion. It aims at developing the African fashion industry into a successful, lucrative and buzzing zone.