This summer, Fashionomics Africa conducted an online survey with African entrepreneurs and fashion designers as a means to learn more about the current industry climate in respective African countries, and how professionals have benefited from our platform. The winner of our survey is Feven Alem, former nurse and current founder of Fe Design, a unique Ethiopian fashion brand dedicated to bringing the artistry behind habesha designs to the world. We are excited to introduce you to Feven and her incredible brand by ways of this exclusive interview.

“I founded Fe Design about a year ago. We are a small start-up business with a big estimated growth for the coming 5 years. We hope to become one of the pioneering Ethiopian brands and to bring our beautiful artistic culture on the global scene. We mostly take pride in the fact that our brand resonates and connects with the generation of young global thinkers and aims to empower independent women that have for many years been discouraged from expressing themselves. We hope to help them communicate better through fashion.

 I have always believed that every person has at least one talent, one thing they are very passionate about. That was fashion for me. It was not something that I decided to do one day. Fashion has been a part of my life since I was little. I was always sketching dresses and tailoring new clothes for my doll. In order to follow my passion, it was my desire to study fashion design in the only university offering the discipline in Ethiopia. Unfortunately, I was not able to do that.   

Not so long ago, any form of art was not considered an ideal source of income in Ethiopia. Even nowadays, the idea and practice of fashion designing is very limited in the capital, Addis Ababa. As a result, my parents weren’t supportive of me pursuing any form of art, including fashion, as a career. This scenario applies to most fashion designers in Ethiopia. “Proper” education and stable income are still considered safe ways to go about life and to obtain what is considered a decent livelihood.

Nevertheless, I didn’t want to give up my passion so easily and was able to enrol in a fashion school after I completed my university studies in nursing and started my first job as a professional nurse.    When I graduated from fashion school a year ago, I decided to resign from my nursing job and to establish a small start-up to develop my own fashion line with the little savings I had left and with the help of a loan from my sister.

One of the biggest challenges of breaking through in the Ethiopian fashion world is the fact that the field itself is at an “infant stage.” The public is hardly aware of fashion designing as a profession. Besides, there are negative attitudes towards fashion designing as a profession and main source of income. Hence, Ethiopian fashion designers are not only striving to break through in a fragile fashion market, but also struggling to create awareness and healthy attitudes towards their profession. In addition to this, the success of self-employed female designers can be a road paved with numerous obstacles. For example, family members and friends who are mostly engaged in conventional wage jobs may think you are crazy to start your own business and to chase your dreams.  Another challenge is that it is extremely difficult to get a loan without people discouraging you. These factors may lead you to give up your dreams. There is also the fact that the Ethiopian market is not willing to give start-up designers like myself the chance to promote themselves. Despite recent improvements, a lot remains to be done.

The Ethiopian fashion scene started to evolve in the past 10 years or less. Ethiopia, like many African countries, is rich with a unique culture and traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation. However, internationally-known Ethiopian brands are close to non-existent. I believe that the new Ethiopian generation is evolving with the rest of the world and that, with evolution, comes self-expression, which, in my view, is founded on striking the right balance between your own identity and international influences. Hence, the young generation wanting to express itself through fashion can do so by having a true Ethiopian signature allied with a more global and contemporary look. Then, fashion can finally be recognized as a way of self-expression.

The demand for out-of-the-box-thinking fashion designers has been increasing since the demand for fashion-forward unique designs started to rise. Ethiopia is one of the oldest African nations and has had a negative international image. Even though Ethiopia is a developing country with its fair share of issues, we have been working hard to demonstrate that there is more to us than political instability. We are a proud African nation filled with beautiful cultures and rich landscapes with enormous potential for growth, not only for Ethiopia but for Africa. Our culture and history have not been promoted enough and that’s why people in the outer world do not know much about Ethiopia and what it has to offer. This brings us back to fashion as a potential powerful tool of self-expression for Ethiopia. There is a lot of work to be done but we at Fe Design, hope to be a part of bringing about that change for our beautiful country and continent.

As I have mentioned earlier, Ethiopia’s fashion world is a growing industry with an enormous potential. One of the exciting events hosted in Addis Ababa, our capital city, every year is the Ethiopian Fashion Week and its Hub of Africa. Their work is incredibly motivating and inspiring for the growth of the Ethiopian fashion industry. It offers a platform for designers, raw material providers as well as consumers and international fashion publications a chance to connect with what new and pre-existing designers have to offer. There’s also a fashion event that we at Fe Design are particularly excited about. We hope to partake in the African Mosque Fashion Incubator Program, which provides start-up designers a platform to create and network with other people from the industry.

Being a female entrepreneur in Ethiopia is basically the same as being a female entrepreneur in any other African country, it is very challenging. Although improvements have been observed in the recent years, a lot remains to be done. The only way women can be empowered is if we women never back down while confronted to challenges and face our obstacles one at a time.

The advice I would give to my fellow ¨she bosses¨ is to never give up challenging the traditional norms society has over women. Although these are almost set in stone, I believe that the situation of women is going to continue improving and therefore, it is better to be one of the women that tried to make change happen rather than the ones that were too afraid to try. Keep pushing yourselves, keep fighting the good fight, make mistakes and learn from the mistakes you made yesterday because that is the only way you can do better tomorrow.”