When you think of Lesotho fashion and its creative design community, there is only one brand synonymous with both: Lesotho Fashion Week. With a celebrated 3-season history, Lesotho Fashion Week continues to tell designer stories nationally and internationally, on and off the runway. Lesotho’s biggest bi-annual fashion event is coming back with its 3rd edition. Produced by KHALALA, the exciting Pan-African celebrity, fashion and lifestyle marketing platform is the driving force behind structuring, strengthening and growing a consciousness of the enormous socio-economic value of a vibrant Lesotho fashion design culture.
Lesotho Fashion Week, the only Business to Business platform in Lesotho, markets the designer collections to the buyers, media, celebrities and the designer bespoke clients. It will bring together esteemed industry players and fashion enthusiasts to network in a fun-packed week at The Anne Guesthouse in Maseru, Lesotho from 17th to 19th April, 2020.
This season will showcase emerging African fashion designers from Lesotho, South Africa, Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria, Malawi and Zambia. Lesotho Fashion Week will also open its doors 50 undergraduates and graduate students from Limkokwing University of Creative Technology to showcase their fashion and accessories, hair and beauty, art and photography, furniture and habitat to an international audience of buyers, agents and future employers.
“The fashion industry creates a lot of economic value. Not only does it create jobs within the clothing industry, but also in related industries along the value chain” points out Mahadi Granier, Founder of Lesotho Fashion Week. “Lesotho Fashion Week serves not only as a very important marketing tool, but seeks to promote “Brand Lesotho” across the African continent and world-wide through continuous marketing of the country, which will stimulates demand and international curiosity, while giving birth to several economic spill-over effects such as in increase in Tourism and associated job creation”, says Granier.
“In most recent years, Basotho culture has caught the Western fashion world’s eye, with many international brands like Louis Vuitton turning the Basotho blanket into fashion accessories. Most recently, Black Panther, a hugely successful super hero marvel movie was launched in 2018. One of the costume highlights in the film was the traditional Basotho blanket. This bears testimony to the fact that the world is taking the lead in the commercialization of Basotho culture for their own financial gain, much less to the benefit of the Basotho fashion creatives,” said Granier.
“This event is hoping to attract the attention of a local and international audience, from young and aspiring creatives to affluent consumers who spend their disposable income in the luxury and fashion space”, said Granier.
Some of the emerging African fashion designers that will showcase their Spring Summer 20 womenswear collections include Tseli.M (Lesotho), Vicsion (South Africa), Kapari Flava (Botswana), Kamva Le Africa (South Africa) and Boemo ZA (South Africa).
“We look forward to welcoming visitors from across the country and the continent to revel in this curated showcase of Africa’s top emerging designers on this world-class platform,” said Granier.
