Pictured: Designs by Maki Oh, made in Nigeria and Needle+Thread, made in Kenya.
Pictured: South Africa's Laduma Ngxokolo's collection, the 31-year-old designer behind MaXhosa, at Lagos Fashion & Design Week 2016.
Pictured: Designs by Ghana's Christie Brown and Kenya-based Adele Dejak.
Pictured: Designs by MaXhosa which reinterprets traditional beadwork patterns within Xhosa culture in South Africa.
"Our approach is in getting the African stories out there," says the site's CEO Kwesi Blair. "One thing we want associated with OXOSI is a content strategy that's very good."
Pictured: Backstage at Lagos Fashion & Design Week 2016.
Its first show at New York Fashion Week this year in February showcased Amaka Osakwe's Maki Oh winter/fall collection. The Nigerian designer has been worn by former first lady Michelle Obama and is a known favorite of celebrities like Solange Knowles.
Pictured: Models in Maki Oh's SS17 collection at Lagos Fashion & Design Week 2016.
Nigeria's consumers spent $400 billion in 2014 estimates McKinsey Global Institute and despite the economic slowdown across the continent, it predicts that Africans will be buying $75 billion worth of goods online by 2025.
Pictured: South Africa based Chu Suwannapha launched his second collection 'Make Art Not War' at South Africa Menswear Fashion Week in 2016.
"Africa currently does not have a 1% share in the global fashion industry GDP which I think is very poor considering the fact that the majority of fashion's natural resources come from the continent, from gold to diamond to cotton even leather so it's only right that we have a share," says 30-year-old Oniru.
Pictured: Dress Me Outlet founder Olatorera Oniru.
Pictured: South Africa brand Kisua, an online clothing retailer launched by Ghanaian entrepreneur Samuel Mensah.
The e-commerce platform sells its own clothes and collaborates with other designers to create collections for its label. It was inspired from Ghana-born Samuel Mensah's travels around the continent as an economist.
Expanding out into South Africa where it is based, the site has other African markets earmarked including Ghana and Nigeria. It's also considering physical stores, "which is what's happening internationally anyway in retail even Amazon is opening physical stores now," says Mensah. Currently it has one in Johannesburg's luxury Hyde Park Corner.
As companies hope to sell trans-boundary within Africa, they are finding ways around Africa's infrastructure issues and opening up dedicated distribution centers within countries.
Pictured: South African model Lulama Mlambo poses while wearing clothes made by Kisua.com in Johannesburg.
Pictured: KISUA Spring/Summer 17 collection on YOOX as part of the online retailer's YOOXYGEN ethical fashion program.
The company's advisory board has some of fashion's heavyweights including Savile Row tailor Ozwald Boateng who is of Ghanaian descent and Lagos Fashion and Design Week founder Omoyemi Akerele.
Pictured: Entrepreneur Samuel Mensah.
Story highlights
Several e-commerce platforms have launched to sell African fashion to global consumers
Beyoncé, Kelis, and Rihanna have worn designs from the region
An increasing number of designers on the continent are morphing from small tailor businesses into recognized and respected fashion houses, thanks to the internet.
In 2014, when Beyoncé was spotted wearing a skirt and jacket from South African brand Kisua, it sold out in days. The musician’s stylist had come across the brand online.
“The internet is a great leveler,” says Kisua’s Ghanaian founder Samuel Mensah. “The speed with which you can access markets and can generate awareness about your brand is unprecedented in the history of fashion.”
The e-commerce platform, launched in 2013, sells its own clothes and collaborates with other designers to create collections for its label. It was born out of Mensah’s travels around the continent as an economist.
When overseas, friends would create wish lists for him. “Next time you are in Senegal or Nigeria or Kenya please buy me this, that I saw so-so wearing,” he explains.
“It always intrigued me why the [African] fashion was so inaccessible. I couldn’t understand why nobody was doing this because consumers obviously wanted the products.”
E-commerce seemed the logical solution.
A billion dollar market
If estimates by Mckinsey’s Global Institute prove fruitful, Africans could be buying $75 billion worth of goods and services online by 2025, taking into account the region’s recent economic slowdown. In Nigeria, the continent’s largest consumer market, revenue has doubled each year since 2010.
View this interactive content on CNN.comThe country has the largest online apparel market in Africa, expected to grow from an estimated $104m in 2014 to nearly $1.1bn in 2019 according to research by Euromonitor International.
The sheer size of Nigeria’s population of 180m mean its consumers spent $400 billion in 2014, McKinsey estimates.
Currently 75% of people in Africa are still offline. But internet access increasingly via mobile phone subscription is growing and predicted to reach 41 percent of Africa’s population by 2020.
View this interactive content on CNN.comA further survey by Ipsos Mori and PayPal reveals 89 percent of Nigeria’s internet users shop online or expect to do so in the future.
Overseas interest
Last year saw the launch of New York based ONYCHEK, an e-commerce site selling luxury apparel from Africa to customers in the US, Canada and UK.
“We are trying to make fashion made in Africa available to everybody,” says founder Chekwas Okafor.
Okafor’s father historically exported textiles from China into Nigeria, and by naming the brand after his dad’s company he aims to do “the reverse”.
“African Americans are excited about supporting African brands and then there are those consumers who are just excited about ethical and sustainable fashion. Those are our customer base,” he adds.
It’s a logic shared by the creators of fellow New York based OXOSI, also launched in 2016. Nigerian founders Akin Adebowale and Kolade Adeyemo aim to connect emerging brands from the continent with global consumers especially those who value the heritage behind designs.
Initial capital for its launch came from private equity firm Kupanda Capital known to seed fund companies with a pan-African interest. It also recruited market guidance from Zara Okpara, brand consultant for Lagos Fashion and Design Week (LFDW).
Currently 25 African based designers make up the site’s roster with Amaka Osakwe’s Maki Oh line its biggest. The Nigerian designer has been worn by former first lady Michelle Obama and is a known favorite of celebrities like Solange Knowles.
“Our team met with Maki during fashion week Lagos [LFDW] and we had a conversation on what we could do together … not just showcasing the clothes but the cultural importance of what she’s doing,” says Adebowale.
“There is a clear void in retail channels that cater to the Africa-made and designed products,” he adds.
Rapidly growing outlets
Nigerian Olatorera Oniru left a corporate career in banking and tech to set up Dress Me Outlet. The online shopping site based in Lagos sells around 85 to 95 percent of its products to Nigerians.
Nigeria is recovering from a recession, after a steep drop in oil prices but for some this represents an opportunity, as imported goods become less affordable.
“Last year we led a very aggressive campaign in Nigeria,” she says. “We offered free shipping and competitive rates on our site.”
Dress Me Outlet launched last year with just five full-time staff but now employs 30. It believes smart promotion has allowed it to build quickly, despite facing stiff competition from Jumia and Konga, major online marketplace retailers operating within Nigeria and other countries in the continent.
The road to global success
Jumia Group became Africa’s first unicorn last year, a name given to companies surpassing a billion dollars in market value. Enabling payment on delivery in some transactions has allowed it to pull in non-banking consumers, a model Dress Me Outlet among many have adopted.
“Really currently the market is big. It’s a new market that is developing especially for the fashion segment of things,” adds Oniru.
For global success however better infrastructure is needed. Many roads within the continent are unpaved curbing the ability to deliver products cheaply.
“There’s a lot of ground work that you need to do to be able to operate successfully and that groundwork hasn’t been laid,” says Mensah, but, “this is changing, there is investment that is happening across the fashion supply chain.”