What if Africa’s economic future was linked to its cultural and creative industries? The hundreds of visitors, from all over Africa and beyond, who came to Algiers, Tunisia, in October to attend the latest edition of the Canex Wknd festival were convinced of this.

Canex, the acronym of Creation Africa Nexus, is a familiar name for regulars of the Tranoï trade show in Paris. In the last two years, the Parisian event has dedicated an entire room of its Palais Brongniart venue each season to showcase 20 designers of African origin. At Tranoï’s September session, labels like Sukeina, Lagos Space Programme and Thebe Magugu staged runway shows.

But Canex’s ambition goes far beyond giving visibility to African designers. Canex Wknd was backed by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), and was held on October 16-19 at the Safex exhibition centre but also in various sites across Algiers. It brought together athletes, musicians, artists, professionals from the media, film and food industries and, of course, fashion designers.

The latter, most of whom were presenting their collections for the first time at Canex, showcased their looks at a runway show inside the lush botanical garden of Algiers. The show was a melting pot of creativity from all over the continent, tapping the talents and creative vibrancy of designers from the Maghreb, East Africa, West Africa and countries of the South. In the same spirit, a line-up of internationally renowned bands staged a gig: Tinariwen (from Algeria and Mali), The Scorpion Kings (from South Africa), Sofiya Nzau (from Kenya), and Ayra Starr (from Nigeria).

As in Canex Wknd’s previous two editions, held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, and Cairo, Egypt, pan-African interaction was encouraged within different cultural industries through meetings, round-table debates, a trade fair exhibiting traditional local know-how, and cookery masterclasses.

Canex’s goal is to develop these different industries, promoting a proactive and positive image of Africa. Like the ‘soft power’ deployed by South Korea through Hallyu, the Korean cultural trend in music, fashion, cinema and cuisine, Canex’s vision is to propagate contemporary African culture and to disseminate it globally, relying on the energy of the continent and its diasporas. Canex Wknd was therefore also a business occasion, putting in touch entrepreneurs with potential investors, the vast majority of them African.

From an economic standpoint, Africa is often considered only for its raw materials, but Afreximbank was keen to highlight the potential of the continent’s creative industries. When Canex was launched in 2020, the project aimed to raise $500 million to support the growth of Africa’s creative industries. In 2022, the funding reached $1 billion. At the Algiers event, Benedict Oramah, president of Afreximbank, announced a $2 billion programme for the next three years. The funding will support infrastructure investment for film production, stadiums, production venues, apparel manufacturing facilities, and training centres.

Since 2020, Canex funding has enabled several pan-African projects to be set up and prosper, for example within the film industry but also in fashion, as with Parisian trade show Tranoï. In Algiers, 16 designers from South Africa, Tunisia, Benin, Malawi and Kenya, selected for their products and their ability to meet customer expectations, showcased their latest collections in an ad hoc section at the heart of the event. Their labels commercialise both ready-to-wear and accessories, and were picked for their entrepreneurship and ability to grow.

“The idea of pooling fashion designers together came to me because I observed that commercial initiatives by African labels, like pop-ups in department stores, really struggled to be successful. The storytelling by African labels was actually hard to understand,” said Lulu Shabell, head of the Lulubell company, which supports Canex designers. “In fact, there was a need to facilitate market access and investment. We started in March 2020 with a partnership with Portugal Fashion,” she added. Shabell set up a label selection process but also a mentorship programme with experts, so that the labels selected would know how to respond to fashion retailers. “The first group was the hardest to pick. What Canex wanted was to create opportunities, and by going to Portugal some [labels] were able to connect and start a conversation with local producers. Now, for each session, we have more than 300 applications from which to choose 10 names,” said Shabell.

Through the ‘Canex Presents Africa’ initiative, nearly 100 labels have been able to showcase their collections to potential international buyers since 2020, at events held in Europe the USA and, this autumn, also in Japan. “We took more than 20 labels to our Tranoï session in Tokyo,” said Boris Provost, CEO of Tranoï, adding that he expects to repeat the experience in future seasons, making it possible “to enhance the visibility of African designers, and enabling them to come into contact with [the Japanese] market,” he said. In the same vein, the designers selected by Canex could open pop-up stores at the Rockefeller Center in New York or at Galeries Lafayette in Paris in summer 2025.

Canex Wknd’s organisers invited international buyers to Algiers in order to publicise Canex and introduce buyers to the collections created by the labels selected. Fashion design, both for accessories and ready-to-wear, can be enhanced by referencing the culture and expertise of the various regions of Africa. Designers like Danayi Chapfika from Zimbabwe with her label Haus of Stone, Emmanuel Okoro with Emmy Kasbit and Olanrewaju Sunmonu with Ola Reay, both from Nigeria, presented modern interpretations of garments and techniques typical of their countries, weaving them in varying degrees into their collections. Kassim Lassissi, a designer based between Benin and France, explored globe-trotter outfits with his label Allëdjo Studio. For his Spring/Summer collection, he focused on Benin. “I had never worked with my country’s typical motifs before. I drew my inspiration for some prints from photos of my mother’s youth in Benin. Then I spent several months in the country, exploring its various regions,” he said. Following his trip, Lassissi decided to use the sacred representations of the Yoruba people, found on some of his flowing trousers-and-shirt sets.

Kenyan label Studio Namnyak believes in using sustainable treatments to create fresh versions of the Masai’s traditional Shuka throws. The label is producing them in neutral hues instead of the Shuka’s classic bright colours, introducing details reminiscent of the throws’ original features that clearly link them to Masai culture, but with a contemporary twist. Namnyak Odupoy, founder of Studio Namnyak, is more than a creative director. She has worked for several brands, and her atelier has been active in both production and consulting for years. She set up the label with an awareness of the production challenges facing African fashion. “I work with Ugandan cotton and use artisans for some items and accessories. The sector is expanding, but it will take time,” said Odupoy. “When we develop a process or a treatment basing it on our artisanal know-how, everything needs to be created from scratch. This means we have to follow this rhythm, and deal with volume and time constraints,” she added.

Pamela Samasuwo-Nyawiri is addressing African fashion’s current challenges with verve. In just a few years, Samasuwo-Nyawiri, a physician, has set up Vanhy Vamwe (VV), a label of accessories and high-end African ready-to-wear, winning over nearly 50 department stores worldwide. Some of her handmade macramé bags can be hung as conceptual wall decorations, while others can be transformed into a dress. Commercial success isn’t Samasuwo-Nyawiri’s only goal. “We started with five women in 2021, now we’re working with 150 women, including 60 ex-prisoners. In a country like Zimbabwe, where the unemployment rate is very high, this shows the positive potential of reclaiming this type of unrecognised skills,” she said.

The current challenge for VV is to expand and maintain an organisation that will enable it to respond to customer orders. Its founders have set up a warehouse in the UK to meet the logistics requirements of international distribution. The challenge, for VV and other African labels, is not only making quality products, but also sidestepping administrative and logistics obstacles. For example, a criticism regularly levelled against African designers is lack of reliability. An image problem that the labels featured at Canex Wknd were keen to address. To do so, their organisations must grow. During the festival’s four days, Samasuwo-Nyawiri presented her label and business model to potential investors. Because yes, brand image and communication are important, but the main challenge is fostering the ideal conditions for African labels to flourish.

According to Kanayo Awani, executive vice-president of Afreximbank, in charge of Intra-African Trade Bank and of export development, while the issue is boosting the global visibility of African culture, especially by encouraging a greater stream of publications promoting it to Africans and African diasporas, the problems are chiefly linked to aid initiatives within the continent. “Global communication tools and social media have broken down barriers, and are helping develop new routes besides established industries like oil, mining and agriculture. With its creative industries, Africa can create viable resources. But this requires investment. It’s not just a matter of funding local players. We must create a high-quality environment that will enable creatives to be empowered,” said Awani, speaking on the festival’s main stage at the event’s opening. “We need infrastructure and proactive policies to bring down barriers. We need to create solutions on an African scale, harmonise our intellectual property laws, simplify access to resources and trade,” she added.

This is precisely what the $2 billion in funding promised in Algiers will be used for: to finance training, production and distribution infrastructure at the continental level. But the main players involved also want to change the rules, a sentiment expressed by the panellists at the round-table debate on how to strengthen Africa’s fashion and textiles ecosystem. More and more African labels are thinking about upgrading their value chain, not only within their home countries, but also by examining options in neighbouring ones. Cross-border business in Africa is still difficult. But many Canex Wknd participants believe that AfCFTA, a continent-wide free-trade agreement, would accelerate change. African designers could then gradually benefit from an environment more favourable to their companies’ competitiveness and more conducive to growth. And not just export growth.

“Our designers are currently being presented all around the world, but it would be really nice to be able to sell in our own markets. As Africans, we too are able to expand our offerings,” said Kenza Fourati, founder of Tunisian brand Osay the Label. “But this means being able to source products in nearby countries at costs that are no longer prohibitive. We do have the resources, but everything is fragmented,” she added. Several projects have been set up to simplify access to resources for the fashion and textiles sector.

The economic potential of a market with 1.2 billion people could then become a reality. But the African industry has to deal with competition from labels and materials from all over the world.

“We need to strengthen our intellectual property rights and really protect our industry,” said Khanyi Mashimbye, the Afreximbank executive in charge of the creative industries, reminding the audience that several US designers had to buy their brand rights to defend their creations. “As well as boosting infrastructure and access to finance, changes must be made and legislation must move forward, so that we can have the same standards throughout Africa. We also need to reduce additional logistics costs at the continental level, and scale up output capacity to be fit for Africa,” added Mashimbye.

In the same spirit as the Mexican government’s initiatives against cultural appropriation by US and European brands, the goal for Africa is to systematise and protect the continent’s specific expertise and designs. This is a key point. For example, Shabell, while continuing to promote Africa’s new fashion talents, intends to set up an organisation that will draw up a listing of local expertise and help disseminate it. A new step that will forge closer links between fashion designers and the heritage of the peoples of Africa.