Joyce Uwamahoro is a fashion designer and the founder of "Joyce fashion design” located at Kigali City market – a local firm that produces both women and men’s apparel.

She was inspired to venture into the fashion business, by friends. Their support enabled her dreams come true.

The accountant by profession had a passion and some skills in fashion and design although she lacked capital. But most importantly, she sought to make Made-in-Rwanda attires.

Through this, she was targeting making local designs to reduce the rate of imports clothes but with higher hopes of exporting, in the future.

The Made-in-Rwanda policy was designed to help enhance the local industrial involvement to the economic growth through promoting the brand of the Rwandan locally made products at the global stage.

Ever since its establishment, it has served to reduce the country’s dependence on imports but rather, stimulating local production and also led a number of young people to set up businesses on their own leading to employment creation.

Joyce Uwamahoro  at her fashion house.

Uwamahoro did research from renowned fashion designers worldwide on the latest styles, which she on many occasions, posted on her social media platforms.

It is through this that friends made orders on the kind of clothes they wanted to be produced. She started her own company in 2018.

Since she didn’t have capital, through deposits from friends, she was able to buy materials to make the clothes. Uwamahoro made prices low and often offered discounts to attract clients. It worked.

She says that her friends also posted her work on social media platforms further increasing her reach. The fashionista notes that in a period of five months, she had started having clients. The orders became many for her that she employed five workers to manage the workload.

How to earn from the fashion business

The fashion entrepreneur explains that due to the technological advancement, the public prefers shopping online compared to retail stores. Customers are using mobile phones to discover which stores have what they want. This at some point, has made the fashion industry become so competitive.

She, however, notes that such competition can be unraveled by being good at executing visions, using good technical skills in the process for clothing production, fabrics, and textiles, satisfying customers’ needs, with high quality and delivering on time.  

A blazer made by  Uwamahoro

"There is lack of innovation in this business. Since the fashion industry is full of new designs, it is very possible for the public to get confused about what to choose. As fashion entrepreneurs, the best way to attract clients is through differentiating the product line in order to be noticeable,”

"My job is to attract loyal recurrent customers and show strengths in what makes me unique from my competitors,” she says.

Uwamahoro points out that there is still lack of business penetration as fashion schools do not teach the basics of running a business. 

 For instance, sourcing, costing, floor margins, quality assessments from vendors and suppliers, prediction demand for the products and sustain constant sales revenue.  Hence the need for fashion entrepreneurs to partner with others who can help them in these areas.

She urged other fashion entrepreneurs to read their competitors’ prices and come up with profitable price range identifying the kind of products that would attract customers for example in varieties, of colors and sizes as customers get bored with the same designs with time. Creativity should be key.

The entrepreneur further noted that poor marketing skills could hinder customers from noticing the products. This is why there is a need to brand where the target clients are available to reach out to them. Either through billboards, magazines, newspapers, or social media.

Uwamahoro urges fashion designers to be aware of the lazy designers who just want to copy other designers’ work and sell it cheaply. If possible, contemplate trademarking your work as a way of protecting it, she added.

"Fashionistas should associate and surround themselves with people that are better than them, as it might enable them to raise their averages in their entrepreneurial journey.  Fashion is risky and highly competitive business, that needs to be invested enough amount of time to solve the challenges that come along,” she emphasized.

The ‘fashionprenuer’ calls upon all those that would like to earn from fashion, to find a niche or advance their strengths in specific areas, but not spreading in too many product lines as they could lose focus.

They must choose target customers, choose the type of products they want to design and for whom, as it will enable them to focus on just that. Whether it is for ladies, babies, children or men, she adds.

She states that in order to succeed in the fashion business, there are a number of skills that one should have, for example, managing finance, flexibility, embracing change, tolerance, listening to others, predicting business risks, learning constantly, knowledge about trends and economics, and most of all, innovative energy.

Uwamahoro also says that local support is still missing as the locals don’t support their very own, thinking it might not be of high quality. Doubt has delayed the fashion industry to profit as expected. But also, there is a need for improved machines for quality designs.