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Fashion Industry Expert Inspired by African Heritage Encourages Retailers to: "Shift Your Supply!”

With the likes of global retailers H&M Gap, PVH Group, Tesco, Calzedonia, ASOS… presenting Made in Africa products as well as the likes of Urban Outfitters, Selfridges and Bloomingdales rolling out their collaborative collections with African designers over the last 5 years, Jacqueline Shaw, Author of best-selling pioneering book Fashion Africa, is set to host the 9th annual Fashion Africa Conference, in London, encouraging more brands and designers to “Shift Your Supply!”

Jacqueline Shaw is an African Fashion Sourcing Consultant and the Founder of the Africa Fashion Guide and Fashion Africa Conference and is also the best selling author of Fashion Africa – Jacqueline, who has run this event for 9 years in locations such as Nairobi, Kenya and Accra, Ghana (in collaboration with the British Council), now brings this years’ conference back to London and is excited to get the conversations flowing between major UK retailers, designers and the African suppliers.

Jacqueline is a specialist at facilitating business relationships between African garment suppliers with brands, retailers and creative entrepreneurs. She said: “For the last ten years we have brought industry insight to the business of African fashion when nobody else was looking behind the scenes - there we were. We have been a source of information for the industry for the last 10 years.”

With almost 20 years experience in the fashion industry, Jacqueline has worked in Turkey, Africa, China, UK and Germany for big international brands. She was a sports and swimwear designer for multi-national brands including working on projects for Puma’s and C&A. Jacqueline is now an industry expert, Visiting Lecturer, Director of Fashion Africa Business Academy, the sourcing trips F.A.S.T, and an acclaimed Author – she is also an acclaimed Public Speaker speaking at The House of Lords, European Commission, Vogue Italia, FIT NYC, BBC Africa and Al Jazeera to name a few… her mission is to spread this message; “The ‘gurus’ of fashion are dead wrong when they say fashion cannot be made in Africa!

Jacqueline continues; “I have a core belief and passion for sharing Africa as a manufacturing landscape. There’s not some, but A LOT of interest of African manufacturing especially in Europe – and this gets me extremely excited and pumped up. I can’t believe this year will be our 9th conference – the 2019 Fashion Africa conference will act as a vehicle to create a social forum for all those attending to talk openly and share ideas, information and expertise, to raise awareness and elevate the perception of design from the continent. It acts as a means to discuss and promote the full supply chain of African Fashion Design, Textiles, and Manufacturing.”

10 years ago, Jacqueline officially founded Africa Fashion Guide as part of her MA Ethical Fashion Degree, but it originally came from her exploring her heritage when her grandfather died. She said: “He was from a tribe called the Maroon tribe in Jamaica (and other Caribbean countries) who were runaway slaves. They were known to be warriors who drove the Spanish slave masters away. They were strong powerful and warriors run by a woman Queen Nana and her brothers. They were thought to be West Africans – the name suggests Ghana but still unknown - either way this drove me to explore Africa and my heritage more.”

“My first trip to Africa was for my 30th birthday and I visited Ghana. I literally fell in love with the country, I felt energy sounds noise passion entrepreneurship and creative talent. I felt alive - I travelled back three times that year and set up my own clothing label made in Ghana and later Kenya as I then decided to then start a masters that came up in ethical fashion – here started my passion for sourcing fashion responsibly and my love for Africa and this was a niche I noticed that wasn’t being served – Africa’s fashion manufacturing industry – so I started a business around this topic. It started as a blog, then a conference, then a book but the interest arose to do more consulting, teaching and speaking engagements internationally and that was when my name and my business was started to get recognized around the world.”

Many fashion and industry expert speakers and panellists from across the world will gather in London with hundreds of delegates sharing up to date information and knowledge on Africa’s fashion manufacturing industry and how to uplevel and shift supply to the continent of the moment for fashion production. “The conference is a great opportunity to bring together some of the best in African fashion with the buyers, designers and brands. An opportunity to meet suppliers, master sourcing, multiply success and maximise sample strategy.

“We aim to provide easy and practical routes to find quality African suppliers - revealing why the ‘gurus’ of fashion are dead wrong that fashion cannot be made in Africa. The conference will also focus on ETHICAL conditions and high working STANDARDS allowing you to build a responsible fashion brand made in Africa.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Chocolate PR .