Completely out of fashion in Kenya
- Gender marker: G1-Promotes gender equality as a significant objective
- Period of implementation: 2021-2022
- Amount: 118,530 EUR
- Geographical area: Sub-Saharan Africa
- (Co-)funded by: Estonia
- Implementing partners: Estonian Implementer- NGO ReUse in cooperation with Estonian Academy of Arts; Kenyan implementer-CXP Africa LTD .
- Link to the project:
- https://www.dima.artun.ee/projects/completely-out-of-fashion
- GAP III’s Areas:
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Gender-Based Violence
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Economic and social empowerment
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Green and digital transformation
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Are you aware of what happens sometimes to the clothes you give for recycling? Beyond our commitment to a more sustainable consumption, in many African countries like Kenya, tons of used clothing are imported from various parts of the world such as Europe, the USA or Asia, flooding the streets and markets and polluting the rivers.
The Estonian Centre for International Development has funded the “Upcycling incubator programme for Kenyan Women” to contribute to a more sustainable and gender responsive use of clothes . This programme promotes circular design between Estonia and Kenya and supports the traditional handcraft and modern textile design skills of Kenyan women. The women are supported with sustainable fashion-specific entrepreneurial skills to give them an opportunity to increase their livelihoods while entrepreneurship and raising awareness of the effects of local and international post-consumer waste on the environment and communities, and opportunities for its reduction.
This programme promotes creativity and harnesses the participants’ love for fashion in creating pieces out of textile waste. The incubation program is addressed to Kenyan women with low or medium experience in crafts, sewing or cut construction, and with the desire and interest to expand their skills and technical knowledge to transform textile waste into sustainable fashion as well as to strengthen their self-confidence and entrepreneurship skills.
“Sometimes it's good to have dreams because they push you to be better. My biggest dream is to have my own fashion house and employ more Kenyans because there are so many people out three who would like to get the skills but don't know how. I want to sell some of my pieces worldwide so that when someone sees something they know that this is from Afriblend from Caroline.” Caroline’s love for fashion started already in high school when she started working with different kinds of fabrics.
In this process, these women were accompanied by three fashion design students from the Estonian Academy of Arts, who showcased their upcycled collections created as part of an exchange program at Moi University in Kenya. Twelve female Kenyan designers who completed the 6-month upcycling incubator had the opportunity to present their upcycled collections made entirely from post-consumer textile waste at “The Fashion Show“ event. From 2023, Estonian Academy of Arts is continuing the cooperation with Kenya under a grant by Estonian Environmental Investment Centre. The Academy of Arts in collaboration with Stockholm Environment Institute and Moi University are introducing the novel circular business model called UPMADE, to Rivatex factory.
Therefore, as a result of this collaboration a large number of used clothes from Gikomba, the largest market in Nairobi, has found their way into a more meaningful and sustainable fashion. This creativity adventure will continue as nearly all of these women continue creating new collections from used clothes or are now working in a larger companies. Follow them on Completely out of Fashion and enjoy having a look at the journey of the documentary filming and the final collections of the programme.