Africa

The French President’s visit to Africa had the positive effect of putting the continent in the spotlight. Africa’s exceptional demographic growth, its wealth of raw materials, and the vigour of its economy make it a future economic giant and an extremely promising potential market. 

The country, with a billion consumers and an average GDP growth rate of 5 percent over the past decade, is booming. Several fashion brands, such as Bensimon, Kaporal, IKKS, Cache Cache, and Morgan, are already on site and selling, and numerous investors, especially Chinese and American, are opening factories there. The Fédération was on target last March when it organised its Focus Pays with you in mind. This regularly scheduled program targets a range of different countries. The March event, which many of you attended, looked at retail and markets in South and West Africa. 

Our President also understood the situation and, instead of inviting big groups already established in Africa, he took a delegation made up mostly of the SMEs and start-ups that are the future. Among them, Fédération member Maison Château Rouge was represented by its founder Youssouf Fofana. Youssouf set up Les Oiseaux Migrateurs association to help African businesses develop at the same time he created his brand. 
At the latest Forum de la Mode, he spoke, along with Sébastien Kopp (Veja), Aalto, and Tissages de Charlieu, about values in fashion, and his participation got attention. 
Africa, globalisation, increasing connections, the ethics of fashion – these elements, going beyond geopolitical difficulties, were also part of the President’s excellent agenda for his visit.   

 Pierre-François Le Louët

Read our interview of Youssouf Fofana here.