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| THE FOUNDERS OF THE KENYAN-SOUTH AFRICAN LABEL LALESSO ARE CONSIDERED BY BUSINESS OF FASHION AS GLOBAL FASHION INDUSTRY SHAPERS |
Lupita Nyong’o, Johann Rupert and his
daughter and owner of Merchants on Long Hanneli, the Lalesso duo and Nigeria’s Omoyemi
Akerele are among the 13 people of African descent who make the
businessoffashion.com BOF500 list for 2014. The annual list claims to be about
the “People who are Shaping the Global Fashion Industry”. In basic terms, these
are the people the website believes are the global fashion industry’s most
influential and these are the people they think are changing the fashion
landscape.
I agree to some extent with some of their
choices but I also disagree with many. To be quite honest, I don’t know how
much research goes into this thing but I think the African names on this list
are mostly there because of the attention they get from the global fashion
media (let’s not go into the media’s coverage of Africa, that’s another new,
very long blog post). The list has very little to do with people who are really
the movers and shakers of the status quo.
It doesn’t take much research to find out who
the chairman of Richemont (Johan Rupert) or his daughter Hanneli. Let’s not
even speak about Lupita Nyong’o because… Hollywood. It does, however, take a lot more than Googling or reading your favourite blogs to find out who is making a difference in any industry; who is shifting perceptions, who is creating jobs, who are the innovators who are ACTUALLY shaping what the future will look like for the "globe" and not just America and Europe. I’m not playing anyone’s
contributions down here because contribute much, they do, but I honestly feel
that when it comes to this continent BusinessofFashion.com really did a lousy
and pretty much lazy job of finding out what is going on. The only way that
these are the only Africans who can be considered to be contributors towards
the shaping of the global fashion industry is if what is happening in this
continent is not regarded as part of what is rolling out in the said “global”
fashion industry. The only way is if Africa is really not considered by the
editors of this website as being part of the “globe”.
Anyway…
This is the full list of Africans who made
the cut:
SOUTH AFRICA
Hanneli Rupert, businesswoman & owner
of Merchants on Long and Okapi
Johann Rupert, chairman of Richemont
Adrian Joffe, President of Dover Street
Market
Alice Heusser & Olivia Kennaway
Ian Moir, Woolworths Chief Executive
(listed under SA even though he is of Australian origin)
KENYA
Lupita Nyong’o
NIGERIA
Omoyemi Akerele, MD: Stylehouse Files
MOROCCO
Sydney Toledano, CE: Christian Dior
TUNISIA
Azzedine Alaïa, Designer
Jean Touitou, Founder of APC
GHANA
Edward Enninful, W Magazine Fashion &
Style Director
ETHIOPIA
Liya Kebede, Model & Businesswoman
EGYPT
Susan Sabet, Publisher
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