…Organises London conference on globalising African fashion
The Sun Publishing Limited, publishers of Daily Sun, Saturday Sun, Sunday Sun and SportingSun newspapers has inked a pact with AFWL African Concept limited to take African Fashion to the global marketplace. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed yesterday by both parties at the head office of The Sun Publishing Limited in Lagos. This is coming on the heels of the sixth edition of the African Fashion Week London scheduled to hold at the West Hall, Olympia London, from September 9 – 10, 2016.
Subsequent to this partnership, Nigeria’s highest selling newspaper, has brought an innovative dimension to the AFWL 2016.
The annual event will this year host a conference designed to attract foreign investments to the continent’s fashion industry in addition to its annual familiar fashion shows featuring African designers on the global stage.
The theme for this year’s event featuring African designers on the global stage.
The theme for this year’s event is “Place of African fashion in the global market: Problems, prospects and perspectives”, while the sub-theme is “Youth empowerment through the fashion industry”.
Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Executive Officer and Editor-in-Chief of The Sun Publishing Limited, Mr. Eric Osagie noted that it is time African fashion industry are taken more seriously as an income and job generator as well as a sector capable of weathering the ups and downs of the global economy.
Osagie observed that many top international designers get inspiration from Africa, but only a few actually achieve high-end fashion that is inherently African, in Africa.
“This trend shows the strategic place of Africa in the global fashion industry. The 2016 AFWL powered by The Sun has been designed in such a way that it will help to transform the fabulous potentials of Africa’s fashion industry into real global prospects. Fashion as at today is a far more cosmopolitan and geographically diverse enterprise than it was a few decades ago. Yet, Africa still remains on the fringes of this otherwise global business.”
“Africa has huge potentials of becoming one of the world’s apparel and textile milieu. But to achieve this, significant international investment is needed to build the industrial infrastructure required to compete with the likes of Asia. At the London conference, we intend to enhance the value of African fashion industry on the world stage especially as regards youth development and job creation, attract investments and create avenues for the public-private sector partnership negotiations to create symbiotic relationship that will mutually benefit investors and stakeholders,” he added.
Appreciating the efforts of The Sun Publishing limited, Miss Ronke Ademiluyi, Chief Executive Officer, AFWL African Concept Limited said the deal will influence international companies to turn in some of the continent’s potential into real prospects aside exhibiting the values of Africa fashion worldwide.
Launched in 2011, AFWL has contributed enormously to the growth of the African fashion industry. AFWL’s mission is “to promote emerging and established African designers from across the globe.”
African Fashion Week London is known for its collaborations of catwalk and exhibitions, which highlights the industry’s established and emerging African designers.
For six consecutive years, AFWL has been at the forefront of capturing the surge of the African inspired trends in the fashion industry. It’s annual event aims to celebrate the work of Africa and African inspired designers in the UK and worldwide..
“London is one of the most important fashion capitals around the world. It is a great honour for us and the African continent to have a professional international platform to promote African Fashion industry actors, Africa heritage, African values, African textiles through AFWL,” Ademiluyi noted.
“ We are very happy that the stable is expanding progressively. We have achieved a colossal success of AFWL been tagged as the biggest platform in Europe for African inspired fashion.
Africa is already generating global brands with value chains. This event will obviously revitalize the demand for traditional craftsmanship and creating jobs,” she stated on a final note.
The Sun Publishing Limited is a fully Nigerian registered limited liability company. It commenced operations on January 18, 2003 with the publication of a weekly, and on June 16, 2003, it went daily. The Sun is a newspaper of human voices targeted at the middle class. Daily, it brings to its readers the current and latest information with a sleek blend of entertainment, fashion, sports, politics and business news.
All newspapers readership surveys carried out in the country in the last four years acknowledge the strong presence of The Sun in South West, South-South, South-East, North-West, North-East, North-Central and Lagos. The Sun has the largest share of consumers’ minds (about 78%), which means most readers are aware and conscious of it.
The Sun Prints its papers simultaneously from three plants in Lagos, Aba and Abuja to cater for its readers across all nooks and cranny of the southern and northern regions of the country.