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UNESCO: Africa’s Fashion Industry is Growing but Needs More Investment

Models wear a creation by Cynthia Abila during the Lagos Fashion Week in Lagos, Nigeria, Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
Models wear a creation by Cynthia Abila during the Lagos Fashion Week in Lagos, Nigeria, Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
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UNESCO: Africa’s Fashion Industry is Growing but Needs More Investment

Models wear a creation by Cynthia Abila during the Lagos Fashion Week in Lagos, Nigeria, Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)
Models wear a creation by Cynthia Abila during the Lagos Fashion Week in Lagos, Nigeria, Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Africa’s fashion industry is growing rapidly to meet local and international demand but inadequate investment limits its potential, UNESCO said Thursday in a report released during Lagos Fashion Week.
Currently valued at $15.5 billion worth of exports annually, the earnings from the continent's fashion industry could triple over a decade with the right investment and infrastructure, according to UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay, who launched the organization’s first report on fashion in Africa in Nigeria’s economic hub of Lagos.
With a young population of 1.3 billion people set to double by 2050, the continent’s fashion industry has also proven to be both “a powerful lever for the promotion of cultural diversity (and) also a way to empower young people and women,” The Associated Press quoted Azoulay as saying.
Across the continent, fashion continues to grow on various fronts – including in movies and films – in the form of textiles, garments as well as accessories and fine crafts, all with a long history of prestige and symbolic of the African culture.
The demand for African fashion brands is also spurred by the growth in e-commerce, the UNESCO report noted.
Africa leads mobile device web traffic in the world, according to the US International Trade Administration. That has opened more market opportunities such that across Nigeria, for instance, young people on social media are steadily opening fashion brands.
“Africans want to wear Africa. It’s really beautiful to see because it hasn’t always been like this,” said Omoyemi Akerele, who founded the Lagos Fashion Week in 2011 to encourage the patronage of Nigerian and African fashion. “But fast forward, a decade after, that’s all people want to wear."
Featuring a mix of designers from across the continent, the annual fashion show celebrates — and provides a market for — local brands mostly highlighting African culture and crafts in various colors and styles.
In Nigeria and other parts of Africa, young fashion designers are hungry for success and are taking over the global scene, said the UNESCO director-general.“A new breed of young designers is causing a stir in the international scene, reinventing the code of luxury while at the same time reconciling them with the demands of sustainable, local fashion and heritage," she said.
One such designer at the Lagos Fashion Week, Ejiro Amos-Tafiri, said she uses her brand to tell African stories while celebrating “the sophistication, class and uniqueness of every woman.”
“With more exposure, people are coming to realize that there is a lot of culture in the Nigerian culture, particularly in the fashion industry,” she said. “So Africa is really the next frontier (for the fashion industry).”

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Fashion

80-year-old LL Bean Staple Finds New Audience as Trendy Bag

Gracie Wiener poses with some of her tote bags in Washington Square Park in New York, Wednesday, July 17, 2024, (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
Gracie Wiener poses with some of her tote bags in Washington Square Park in New York, Wednesday, July 17, 2024, (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
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80-year-old LL Bean Staple Finds New Audience as Trendy Bag

Gracie Wiener poses with some of her tote bags in Washington Square Park in New York, Wednesday, July 17, 2024, (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)
Gracie Wiener poses with some of her tote bags in Washington Square Park in New York, Wednesday, July 17, 2024, (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)

L.L. Bean created it 80 years ago to haul heavy blocks of ice. Now it's a must-have summer fashion accessory, The Associated Press reported.

The simple, sturdy canvas bag called the Boat and Tote is having an extended moment 80 years after its introduction, thanks to a social media trend in which they're monogrammed with ironic or flashy phrases.

New Yorker Gracie Wiener helped get it started by ordering her humble bags from L.L. Bean monogrammed with “Psycho” and then “Prada,” the pricey Italian luxury brand, instead of just her name or initials, and posting about them on Instagram. Then others began showcasing their own unique bags on TikTok.

Soon, it wasn’t enough to have a bag monogrammed with “Schlepper,” “HOT MESS,” “slayyyy” or “cool mom.” Customers began testing the limits of the human censors in L.L. Bean’s monogram department, which bans profanity “or other objectionable words or phrases,” with more provocative wording like “Bite me,” “Dum Blonde” and “Ambitchous.”

Social media fueled the surge, just as it did for Stanley’s tumblers and Trader Joe’s $2.99 canvas bags, which were once selling on eBay for $200, said Beth Goldstein, an analyst at Circana, which tracks consumer spending and trends.
The tote’s revival came at a time when price-conscious consumers were forgoing expensive handbags, sales of which have weakened, and L.L. Bean’s bag fit the bill as a functional item that’s trendy precisely because it’s not trendy, she said. L.L. Bean's regular bags top out at about $55, though some fancier versions cost upward of $100.
“There’s a trend toward the utilitarian, the simple things and more accessible price points,” she said, and the customization added to the appeal: “Status items don’t have to be designer price points.”

L.L. Bean’s tote was first advertised in a catalog as Bean’s Ice Carrier in 1944 during World War II, when ice chests were common. Then they disappeared before being reintroduced in 1965 as the Boat and Tote.

These days, they’re still made in Maine and are still capable of hauling 500 pounds of ice, but they are far more likely to carry laptops, headphones, groceries, books, beach gear, travel essentials and other common items.

Those snarky, pop-oriented phrases transformed them into a sassy essential and helped them spread beyond Maine, Massachusetts’ Cape Cod and other New England enclaves to places like Los Angeles and New York City, where fashionistas like Gwyneth Paltrow, Reese Witherspoon and Sarah Jessica Parker are toting them — but not necessarily brandished with ironic phrases.

“It’s just one of those things that makes people smile and makes people laugh, and it’s unexpected,” said Wiener, who got it all started with her @ironicboatandtote Instagram page, which she started as a fun side hustle from her job as social media manager for Air Mail, a digital publication launched by former Vanity Fair Editor-in-Chief Graydon Carter.

The folks at L.L. Bean were both stunned and pleased by the continuing growth. For the past two years, the Boat and Tote has been L.L. Bean’s No. 1 contributor to luring in new customers, and sales grew 64% from fiscal years 2021 to 2023, spokesperson Amanda Hannah said.

The surge in popularity is reminiscent of L.L. Bean’s traditional hunting shoe, the iconic staple for trudging through rain and muck, which enjoyed its own moment a few years back, driven by college students.