🌍 Kantamanto fire, markets respond to Trump tariff news

Here's your fashion news & careers cheat sheet for 13 January 2025

January 13, 2025 • Reading this will take: 5 minutes

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Hi ,

I hope your year is off to a strong start! In 2025 I’ll be keeping an eye on:

  • The relationship between global systems & local ones. From some angles, African fashion still looks like a silo, but there’s some obvious evidence to the contrary. I’d like to explore the existing links — like LFW’s relationships with international buyers, EFI’s network of craft community suppliers working with brands like Vivienne Westwood, the logistics of shipping Thebe Magugu from Joburg to stockists around the world — and discover potential new opportunities to link the systems in other ways.

  • Local impact — positive or negative — from global actions. From stories like the next wave of foreign retail brands taking their first steps onto the continent to the recent heartbreaking Kantamantu market fire (donate here).

  • How retail is changing and what that means for designers

  • Public sector/government activity that grows support for fashion and the creative industries (or shrinks support)

As always, I’m ready and waiting to hear from you — questions, comments, all of it. I write this newsletter for you — yes, you — so please tell me what you need. On a personal note, I’m doing the 12 week year, aiming for some big financial goals, and trying to pour more into myself than I take out. What are you working on in 2025? I’d love to hear — especially if it might make a good story for The Fashion Operator.

With thanks,
Modupe Oloruntoba

Across Africa

Massive cleanup under way in Ghana after fire destroys one of world’s biggest secondhand markets

Thousands of traders face ruin after blaze razes two-thirds of Accra’s Kantamanto, which receives an estimated 15m used clothes from global north each week

Watch: Expanding Africa’s fashion sector

As more African fashion designers break into the international market, creatives search for ways to keep the value chain within the continent and compete with household brands.

2024 Threads of Resistance: A Retrospective Overview of Four South African Voices in Sustainable Fashion

In 2024, South African designers Gugu Peteni, Frances van Hasselt, Stephanie Bentum, and Kat van Duinen skillfully utilised mohair to produce collections that harmonise innovation with tradition.

Woolworths’ next big move for South Africa

Woolworths Group CEO Roy Bagattini said that the beauty division experienced an unrivalled 20% growth per year, with the trend expected to continue.

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That’s all for today — thoughts?

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