Ethiopian, Tanzanian bag top honours at Addis fashion week

Tigrai Online
May 06, 2012

Ethiopia’s Mafi and Tanzania’s Doreen Mashika are the winners of this year’s Origin Africa Designer Showcase in partnership with Hub of Africa Fashion Week.

Mafi, who presented a streetwise, sassy collection of urban sportswear, won the Origin Africa Design Award and will be heading to the Africa Fashion Week New York in July. Mashika took home the Ethical Fashion Award and the US Retailer Award — the two awards introduced this year.

The US Retailers Award, from OneStopPlus.com, the online fashion mall, includes a supply contract while the Ethical Fashion Award includes the chance to participate in the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris.

Origin Africa seeks to capture the spirit, style and innovation of modern Africa through such trade shows, in it bid to connect the continent’s designers and textile manufactures with buyers from the US.

The annual event is sponsored by USAid East Africa’s Competitiveness and Trade Expansion (Compete) programme.
This year’s event, held at the African Union Conference Centre in Addis Ababa recently, featured established and upcoming fashion designers from Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mozambique, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Somalia and Tanzania.

ldquo;Participants at the trade expo and seminar shared information and showcased their creativity,” said Finn Holm-Olsen, USAid Compete’s East and Central Africa trade hub advisor

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