Thursday 26 September 2013

MY FRUSTRATION WITH THE KENYAN FASHION RETAIL SCENE: A RANT

Almost anyone who knows me even for a week knows I love clothes. I love the fashion industry I love fabric. I read about fashion every day almost throughout the day. I read fashion blogs both Kenyan and Internationally. I read about fabric design. Last week i went to woolworths to see what they have in store. I usually wait for sales so that i can be able to afford the clothes they stock. Unluckily for me there was no sale on this particular occasion. I just got so frustrated and annoyed at the prices of the clothes. Some of the prices in this shop are completely unaffordable for most people. It would be so much easier for them to reduce the prices and have more clients that have this ridiculous prices that keep away a big percentage of would be customers.

Then yesterday while walking in town with a friend of mine I saw a street hawker selling shoes on the streets. One of the shoes that he was selling were the exact same shoe that i had bought from Primark at dirt cheap price on sale but the original price was still quite cheap. For those who might be have been to the UK, Primark sells ATMOSPHERE branded clothes at the cheapest price you can imagine. But this bugger was selling the ratty second hand shoe for a higher price than its original retail price. I happened to have the shoe in my vehicle and it had the price sticker still on the bottom of the shoe and i showed him the original price and the sale price that were on the shoe. Man!!!!! I was so annoyed. It is so frustrating getting good quality well priced and affordable clothes in this country.

It is also so annoying that we have destroyed our cotton industry and as a result we have had to move on to second hand clothes as a staple. Infact Kenya has the largest second hand clothes market in sub-saharan Africa, heck probably the whole of the global south. Because second hand clothes have become such a staple, it has developed a whole multi-million industry market that is actually fuelling economic growth. But at what expense. There is a farmer in Nyanza who cannot feed and educate his children because the cotton industry died. On my way to work every morning I pass by the shell of the once vibrant KICOMI fabric company. I think it is time we made a conscious effort to start reviving our fabric industry. This are the things that will help build our fashion industry in a sustainable manner.Create jobs not just for farmers but for fabric factories, designers, models, tailors and so many other side industries that develop from this. and the beauty of this is that it is sustainable and long lasting and actually a benefit to the economy of our country

NB: If you go buy second hand clothes and the brand reads atmosphere please make sure you bargain like your life depends on it because anything over kshs 500 is probably double its original cost

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