"As a company I did it because I want to go to the next level which is international but you can’t say you’re open to the international market without really knowing who is willing to buy those clothes and how they behave and how they really are in their everyday lives.”

Joselyn Umutoniwase, the founder of Rwanda Clothing, a local fashion design brand is explaining her reasons for attending the Africa Fashion Show Geneva (AFSG) in Switzerland earlier this month.

Although it was not the first fashion show she was attending in Europe, this was her professional debut, hence the importance she attaches to it.

Getting there

She describes the whole experience as "very funny this time”.

One of Umutoniwase’s resolutions for the year 2015 was to attend at least one international Fashion show this year.

She therefore applied to the Berlin and London Fashion Weeks.

"The Berlin Fashion Week chose me last year but it was so expensive. If I told you the price you would be like hey, this is money you should invest in your company!”

"I wanted to go to Berlin because my husband is German and we go there once or twice a year so I thought I could probably just drop in there, do a fashion show and then go meet my husband’s family.

If you put everything together it came to a budget of about 10,000 Euros, and I was like no, I can’t afford that at the moment. It was 4,000 Euros for just participation, so plus the air tickets and stay and everything I needed about 10,000 euros.”

By then, Africa Fashion Show Geneva was not yet an option for her.

That year (2015), Alexia Mupende, a Kigali-based freelance model represented Rwanda at Africa Fashion Show Geneva, inadvertently setting Umunoniwase and her Rwanda Clothing brand up for this year’s edition.

On her return, Mupende shared pictures from the show and encouraged Umutoniwase to apply for this year, saying it was a good platform for exposure.

After about three months, the organiser of AFSG came to Kigali to check on Alexia and see designers in Kigali.

"He wanted to get in touch with real designers and get to know their story and where they work from. Alexia introduced me to him as one of her designers in Kigali and they came here and that’s how we met.

He said he’d love to see me showcase my designs at Africa Fashion Show Geneva and that’s how it started,” Umutoniwase explains.

Apparently, her guest found Umutoniwase’s business concept encouraging and refreshingly different:

"He was impressed that I produce from my own place as opposed to some of the designers who were participating don’t have their own production space. They create a collection just for that market, produce somewhere they are able to afford, and then go with the clothes and sell it or present it at a fashion show.

But for me I had both so he was very happy to experience that. I told him I would participate this year because already my target had been to participate in anything international this year.”

How expensive was it?

"Quite, but not really like Berlin,” she retorts:

"This one (Africa Fashion Show Geneva was 1,000 Euros participation fee, Berlin was 4,000 Euros, so you can see the difference. The rest of course you have to do it yourself –pay for your hotel, air ticket, food and the rest.”

She believes that the investment was well worth it:

"For me it was about opening my eyes to see what people want, how I can reach them, and I must say I got some good feedback, although I must say selling clothes in Europe is not as easy as it seems.”

How does she source funding?

Umutoniwase insists she has never sought funding from elsewhere to facilitate her trips abroad. To attend any fashion show, she has to dig deep into the Rwanda Clothing and even her personal coffers.

"For me I’m really not that kind of person. If I want to do something I have to find it in my own way. I know I can have the support but it really costs you a lot of energy which you could have used to make your own money and do it on your own (sending e-mails, calling, asking and asking, then waiting for months) …

I’m ready to have that kind of funding but those people you need to follow up on them 24 hours.”

Did she count profits?

Umutoniwase measures her success at such fashion shows in terms of the contacts made, the exposure, and the feedback from potential clients:

"Unless you go to a Trade Fair is when you can expect to sell as much as half of your wares. For me it’s a strategy to grow the company and spread our wings, otherwise you can’t expect to recover that kind of money in one week.

I believe that the connection is very important for a brand to grow, because at the end of the day there’s a lot we still have to learn. In Kinyarwanda we have a saying that the birds that do not fly never know where the grain is.

These days it’s easy to learn a lot from the Internet and Facebook but it’s not everything. You have to go there and get experience and see for yourself, because they have a lot, they’ve designed almost everything you can imagine but here we still lack a lot. We have nothing actually. Look in terms of shops, designers and brands we’re still at the bottom. If you want to grow and be able to reach the market and understand it you have to go out there. One doesn’t need to do it my exact way, you can even go to Kenya or Tanzania and that’s already a big difference.”

Rwanda Clothing

Going by Rwanda Clothing’s fast-growing portfolio, it’s safe to say that hard work pays, in this case –giving international visibility to her brand.

As a brand, Rwanda Clothing tailors its garments and merchandise to suit an Expat, tourist, and middle class Rwandan clientele.

In 2010 when the design house opened, it had only two employees, while today it boasts a staff enrolment of sixteen employees –twelve tailors and four administrative assistants.

"Some people will put that money into big billboards and advertising here in Rwanda in order to attract customers but I know my customers and this is not what attracts them.

What attracts them to me is my knowledge, and if I don’t learn more I’m not attracting them.”

She describes herself as "a fashion entrepreneur, a businesswoman.”

"I don’t sew anymore because I have no time for that, but doesn’t mean that I can’t if I really need to do it, plus I still create the design concepts.”

Her take on the proposed ban on caguwa

A self-proclaimed fan of used clothes (caguwa), she believes that implementing the ban on them as announced recently by Finance Minister Amb. Claver Gatete in his budget speech will not be a walk in the park:

"I’m part of the team for changing that with MINICOM who of course can’t work on their own. They have to work with designers and small companies like us because they can’t just make caguwa disappear without a strategy to cover the market,” she begins.

"We’re working with MINICOM but we think there are still a lot of challenges because we’re about five small companies who are producing local fabrics.

I don’t do designs for the poor because that’s not the people I target. Of course there will be companies which are producing cheaply but my strategy is not for that mass market. The government is trying to see how to strike a balance –to have those who are producing for special occasions and for a special segment of the market, and those who are producing for the mass market.”

Being a fashion designer, she says, has not affected her enthusiasm for a good bargain on used items:

"I wear both because I wear those clothes in different situations. I have high end classy dresses but I can’t wear those everyday because that would be ridiculous. I can produce leggings and jeans for instance, but the cost would be super high as compared to caguwa, so obviously I’m not for banning caguwa and we already told MINICOM it’s something we have to think about, maybe give it another ten years or five years at least, bt doing it now and quick is going to give us a lot of challenge but let’s try and see.”

Not dead people’s clothes!

"Most times when you shop from caguwa you find that some of the clothes have new tags. These are big brands in Europe and America, when they produce they do it for a certain amount of time during which all that is produced has to be sold, and if they’re not sold they go to garbage, but they are not garbage.”