Ethiopian and Somalian supermodels' paths diverge.
Hugh Hart



Liya Kebede was born in East Africa. Waris Dirie was born in East Africa. Kebede came to London and became a supermodel. Dirie also moved to London and became a supermodel. But there's one key difference between the two women. Dirie suffered a horrific female circumcision at age 3 while Kebede emerged from her childhood unscathed.

Ethiopian-born Kebede, who portrays Dirie in writer-director Sherry Hormann's new movie "Desert Flower," says, "It happens in Ethiopia, yes, but not in the city where I grew up. It was something I heard about slightly that happened far away in the countryside. I didn't put too much importance on it." Then Kebede read Dirie's memoir. "It really hit home," she says. Read more...

Living in high fashion
By Biruk Gebremedhin

The history of Ethiopia is the history of leather in many ways. The Ethiopian leather industry is at the beginning of a period of great change and transformation.

And the leather fashion industry is the most important outlet for Ethiopian tannery products.

High fashion design is the result of the application of aesthetically pleasing designs, along with natural beauty to outfits. The contemporary Ethiopian designer Osman Mohammed knows how to make a client look gorgeous through leather styles.

Osman was born in 1980 in Addis Ababa. He is a graduate of the Addis Ababa University school of Fine arts and design(2002). He also attended automotive technology courses for one year at the Necat Technical School (200), also in Addis Ababa.

Then followed several years as a successful freelance designer, but it was in 2006 that the Osman Mohammed label was created, which allowed him to thrive in creating custom-made leather designs for both high- rolling clients and high-profile celebrities.

Ethiopian leather dresses can be customized according to size, color and style. Prices vary according to location, style, and quantity. High quality handbags, purses, belts, wallets and hats are also made form Ethiopian leather. “Ready-to-wear clothes govern the relationship between fashion designers and the market. If my client has a particular style in mind. I can make it, along with all the different colors available,” said Osman.

He stressed, “Great care is taken in the choice and cut of the leather. Clothes are made in small quantities to guarantee exclusivity, so they are expensive.”

He explained leather tanning covers the treatment of raw materials, i.e, the conversion of raw skin into leather, a stable material, and finishing it. “As such it can be used in the manufacture of a wide range of consumer products.”

His clothes have become a uniform for the upwardly mobile fashionistas. “Men love relaxed suits and soft color palette of neutral beiges and grays,” said Osman. He added that his designs for women have also been appreciated for their neutrality and modern elegance.

Osman has won countless awards. From 2000 his designs have been exhibited in a major retrospective show that has traveled world wide including France, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Chile and Dubai.

He also crates links with different African designers for the exchange of knowledge and skills. In this regard he has worked with the German fashion designer Markus Lupfer on collections for renaissance fashion show up on the invitation of the Goethe-Institute here in Addis Ababa. Since 2007, he runs Ras Africa Designs, which specializes in ready-made leather clothing.

The leather tanning industry is a global industry. Hence, Ethiopian tanners depend highly on access to raw materials and to export markets. The share of the country in the world market is shrinking with the development of the leather industry in other regions of the world such as India and the Americas.

“However, the Ethiopia tanning industry is still the world’s largest supplier of leather in the international market place. And the leather fashion industry often plays a key role in the local economy, being the main wealth and employment creator,” Osman noted.

Anna Getaneh shines at 'Fashion for Peace’ in Nairobi
by Biruk Gebremedhin

It is said that we are defined by what we wear. The colors and designs of our clothes define our personality.

Africa is a mosaic of costumes. That is why people from all over the world travel to visit it. Africa had more colors and designs to show to the world in October at Nairobi.

African fashion designers gathered together on October 31 to display their craftsmanship at the 'Fashion for Peace’ show. The event was put together to celebrate Africa’s unity in diversity. Nine African celebrated designers showcased their works and fans got a chance to see the richness of African cultural portrayed in unique fabrics. Organized by Festival for African Fashion and Arts (FAFA) 'Fashion for Peace’ helped to promote peace on the continent through art and music.

On the occasion, fashion lovers got a glimpse of Anna Getaneh’s fabulous designs worn by beautiful African models in a gazebo under the moonlight.

Ethiopian designer Anna Getaneh is an internationally acclaimed model and philanthropist.

She founded her own company, ‘African Mosaique,’ in 2004, a prestigious fashion house based in South Africa. Her company specializes in the design and manufacture of clothing and accessories which are all inspired by Africa. "I try to attend events with a pan-African concept and I think what is great about FAFA is they have been doing it for a couple of years and they do bring very interesting and emerging designers. It’s good for us to not only showcase collectively but also to meet and see what other people are doing as well," Anna said.

FAFA was launched in 2008 in Kenya and since its commencement the organizers have staged successful fashion and cultural events. Through FAFA, the organizers have brought together African professional designers from different corners of the world for a noble cause.

Miss Habesha Pageant Competes for Capital’s Crowded Catwalks

With the success of Ethiopians in the modelling world like Liya Kebede, local beauty pageants and fashion shows have been on the rise over the past few years. Miss Habesha, in its third incarnation, hit the catwalk last week, following Miss Ethiopia and Miss Tourism, amidst the cheers and whistles of fans and supporters, writes HANS LARSON/Fortune.

All eyes are on the eventual winner, Bethelhem Gaz, age 21, as she makes her way down the catwalk on the way to becoming the third Miss Habesha.
 
As visible as if one were to suddenly stand up on a table at a dinner party, the contestants for Miss Habesha paraded down Addis Abeba’s crowded catwalk, strutting their stuff at Harmony Hotel’s Tana Hall, on Thursday, September 30, 2010.

With fast paced music blaring and everybody from the judges to the audience, including friends and family, watching each contestant’s every move, the catwalk can often be one of the most embarrassing times to make a mistake. Yet this only adds to the excitement of the spectacle.

The judges gaze intently with an eerie calmness. Mothers of contestants hold their breath with their hands tensely clasped in front of their faces as if praying, while other family members and friends cheer and whistle with reckless abandon.

Addis Abeba has been experiencing a wave of beauty pageants and fashion shows over the last couple months. There has been Miss Ethiopia, Miss Tourism, and now Miss Habesha, not to mention the recent Hub of Africa Fashion Week. Yet, they all have the same basic atmosphere engendered by the catwalk.

In fact, the Miss Habesha Beauty Pageant’s catwalk also combined a fashion show. Some of the contestants even participated, joined by a handful of designers and models seated among the audience.

One design by Yeworkwuha Ayalew, was an Ethiopian flag sewn into a dress, with the yellow five pointed star positioned smack-dab in the middle of where it would sway from side to side as its wearer was gracing the catwalk.

The inclusion of fashion design added depth to the spectacle and the inclusion of male designs made it more diverse.

While many of the women’s clothes were elegant, most of the men wore more relaxed looks, including hooded tops and short Capri-style pants.

One female model was similarly covered from head to toe in a funky hoody made with traditional Ethiopian style fabric and embroidered patterns.

“We are trying to bring back the good name of beauty contests,” said Anteneh Degefe, programme coordinator and psychological instructor of Mahder Art & Promotion Plc, the pageant’s promoter.

Anteneh conducted a two-month training course aimed at increasing the confidence skills of the 20 contestants.

Unlike some beauty pageants and fashion shows, not only were the models in the spotlight, the audience was easily visible, as well. Rather than just a sea of darkness stretching away from the catwalk, all the contestants could easily see and, perhaps, be distracted by the faces, reactions, and expressions of audience members.

This may have been the reason that the cat got some of the contestant’s tongues during their initial introductions, but the talent show round went much more smoothly with barely a hiccup, as contestants read poetry, danced, or even sang. One contestant, the eventual winner, even dressed a manikin on stage for this part of the competition, as she is a fashion student at Next Design Institute.

Organised by Henock Tadesse, general manager of Mahder Art & Promotion Plc, the 20 contestants were reduced to half, following the talent section of the competition.

By this time, there had already been at least a half dozen trips down the catwalk in front of a hall full of nearly 200 spectators, including some who were standing.

The remaining 10 contestants answered trivia questions about Ethiopia, such as naming the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation World Heritage Sites (UNESCO WHS) of the country. Again the judges reduced the contestants to half, leaving only five.

With the crowd roaring, the master of ceremonies heightened the suspense by naming fifth and fourth place before announcing the three winners.

It was down to contestants nine, 17, and 19.

The supporters of Mahlet Gesesew, number nine, were the loudest, by far, the whole evening. They led the announcer, saying, “Aser . . .” meaning that they “knew” either 17 or 19 would be named as the next runner-up. They screamed and whistled with delight when Frehiwot Getachew, number 17, was awarded third place, in hopes that their Mahlet would win the crown.

However, with last year’s queen looking on, prepared to hand over the crown, the announcer named, not number nine, but 19, Bethelhem Gaz, as the new Miss Habesha.

“This is the best thing that has happened to me,” she said, proud to represent an “amazing, brave, and beautiful people.”

It was the first beauty pageant that she had participated in, and one of the best parts about it was the training programme in the weeks before the competition, she said.

The first and second runners-up also seemed delighted.

“I won third place in the competition last year, so I am happy to have improved, but, to my family and friends, I am still number one,” Mahlet said emphatically.

She was recently accepted to Addis Abeba University’s Extension Programme after testing the scene at the new university in Jijiga, Somali Regional State.

“It was not comfortable for me there,” she admitted.

Each of the top three were awarded jewellery by Crown Silver, as cameramen rushed to take close-ups of the three posed together.

“It was good to participate in a contest that focused on Ethiopian culture,” said Frehiwot, an English student of Kotebe College, of her first national beauty contest.

These sentiments were also shared by many of the other contestants.

Conducted exclusively in Amharic, except for brief translations at the very beginning and end, the pageant was true to its title “Habesha,” featuring an asmari and traditional coffee.

Music during the programme included other languages, such as Somali and Benshangul.

Honourable guests Fekadu Teklemariam and Meseret Mebrate of Gebena fame cut the diffo dabo (traditional bread), together, wedding style, each with a hand on the knife.

Eyassu Tadesse, 22, a relative of Frehiwot, sat with other family members.

“This is the first beauty contest that I have attended,” he said. “My sister won third place out of the 20 contestants, so it is good.”
 
 
“This is the best thing that has happened to me,” she said, proud to represent an “amazing, brave, and beautiful people.”

It was the first beauty pageant that she had participated in, and one of the best parts about it was the training programme in the weeks before the competition, she said.

The first and second runners-up also seemed delighted.

“I won third place in the competition last year, so I am happy to have improved, but, to my family and friends, I am still number one,” Mahlet said emphatically.

She was recently accepted to Addis Abeba University’s Extension Programme after testing the scene at the new university in Jijiga, Somali Regional State.

“It was not comfortable for me there,” she admitted.

Each of the top three were awarded jewellery by Crown Silver, as cameramen rushed to take close-ups of the three posed together.

“It was good to participate in a contest that focused on Ethiopian culture,” said Frehiwot, an English student of Kotebe College, of her first national beauty contest.

These sentiments were also shared by many of the other contestants.

Conducted exclusively in Amharic, except for brief translations at the very beginning and end, the pageant was true to its title “Habesha,” featuring an asmari and traditional coffee.

Music during the programme included other languages, such as Somali and Benshangul.

Honourable guests Fekadu Teklemariam and Meseret Mebrate of Gebena fame cut the diffo dabo (traditional bread), together, wedding style, each with a hand on the knife.

Eyassu Tadesse, 22, a relative of Frehiwot, sat with other family members.

“This is the first beauty contest that I have attended,” he said. “My sister won third place out of the 20 contestants, so it is good

Promoting “Sustainable Development in Ethiopia” through Fashion Show?

Clairvoyant Marketing Agency in partnership with Yoha Entertainment and other governmental and nongovernmental partners are set to host “the Hub of Africa Fashion Week”

 at Laphto Entertainment Center in Addis Ababa from September 23-25, 2010.

The organizers indicated that the fashion show will “promote sustainable development” and are able to convince around 20 institutions to support this cause. Among the supporters of the fashion show who are convinced that the show will promote sustainable development includes the Ministry of Trade & Industry, African Union, USAID and VEGA/AGOA.

According to the statement newbusinessethiopia.com received this mooring from the organizers, Turkish Airlines, ABC Car Rental, Zeleman Productions, Jupiter Hotel, Black Label/Everyblock PLC, Mono 2000, DStv/ Multichoice Ethiopia, Boston Partners, Speak Africa, Adika Tour& Travel, Bishangari Lodge, AMBO Mineral Water, Kora Image, Zoma Magazine, DesignLab, Yesakor, Africa Capacity Building Foundation, Afro FM, Gojo Magazine and Capital newspaper are also convinced about the need for the fashion show to “in promoting sustainable development”.

Promoting sustainable development by encouraging young people who have a keen interest in fashion to make a good use of their talents to build the fashion industry in Africa, the organizers indicated.

“Facilitation education for trade and development through workshops led by peers in the industry and Promoting CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) by giving some of the proceeds of the event to charities. The event will also aim to secure commitments to assist men and women in urban and rural communities to acquire specific skills in the fashion industry,” the promoters indicated.

“The show aims to “Unite the Industry for Sustainable Development” by featuring young up-coming fashion designers from Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Somalia, DRC and Tanzania. The textile industry, buyers/sellers and various fashion institutes will also take part in the event.”

Uniting and strengthening networking amongst fashion designers and fashion industry players in Africa is mentioned as one of the specific objectives of the fashion week.

Clairvoyant is responding to the growing need for an annual event that focuses on the contribution of the fashion industry to sustainable development and growth in Africa, the statement indicated.

LIYA KEBEDE: STAR OF AFRICA

she was one of the world's biggest fashion models and the first black face of Estée Lauder. But when Liya Kebede returned home to Ethiopia and saw the chronic problems of maternal health her career took a new turn. Her campaign continues – and now she has set her sights on sustainable fashion 
 
Flicking through Liya Kebede's pile of fashion magazine covers passes a calm and perfumed afternoon. In 2002, French Vogue declared May was "All About Liya" month, dedicating a whole issue to the African supermodel after the editor saw her in Tom Ford's Gucci catwalk show. Describing the day they first met, Ford recalls: "She looked me in the eyes, and I was quite literally stunned. Liya projects an aura of goodness and calm that outshines even her extraordinary physical beauty. Later in the day," Ford continues, "when trying to remember what she looked like, I could only remember her eyes."
Born 32 years ago in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, Kebede was spotted twice. The first time, as a teenager, took her to Paris, where she failed, homesick. When she returned to Ethiopia, she met her husband, a hedge-fund manager 20 years her senior, and it wasn't until the second time, aged 23 in Chicago, where the couple had set up home, that it stuck. In no time Kebede signed a £1.65m contract to become the first black face of Estée Lauder; her face and long, generous limbs sold underwear, handbags, evening dresses and Tiffany diamonds. She took a role in a Robert De Niro film, she was named 11th in a Forbes list of the world's top-earning models, she had a son and a daughter, Suhul and Raee, then in 2005 she took a breath…

We speak as she dashes through Manhattan between meetings. Taxis honk and men yell as she quietly talks about her childhood, growing up under "vast blue skies". She describes the "beautiful, raw land", the space. And then the way that New York shook her up, "the way it does everyone". It was when she returned to Ethiopia from the USA, where pregnancy is so celebrated, that she became involved in raising awareness of her home country's maternal health crisis. In Ethiopia a mother dies in childbirth every minute, leaving her baby 10 times less likely to survive past the age of two.

"There's a saying in Africa: To find out you are pregnant is to have one foot in the grave," she says. "Every time I go back home I'm introduced to women who've barely made it."

Her soft accent leaps from drawl to drawl as she remembers meeting an elderly woman who, after her daughter died giving birth to her third child, was forced to bring up her grandchildren alone. "She couldn't afford food, let alone schools, so the baby was given away. It was such a tragedy – not only did she lose her daughter but the whole family was destroyed. When, in an African community like that, a mother dies, it affects everyone."

In 2006 she set up the Liya Kebede Foundation. Her mission was to reduce maternal, newborn and child mortality in Ethiopia, and around the world. Funding advocacy and awareness-raising projects, as well as providing direct support for community-based education and training, the foundation's success led to her recognition by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader. While Kebede's aims are ambitious, she's particularly good at promoting the small, gentle steps towards life-changing aid. She talks, for instance, about the importance of providing torches to villages in developing countries, to light midwives' paths to the houses of women with no electricity, but she's clear, too, that there's no small solution to a global problem. "In these villages there are no roads, let alone hospitals. The last time I visited, I was told about a local woman who started bleeding halfway through delivering her child. The whole village carried her to hospital, but she died on the way." These are preventable deaths, she stresses.

It was on another trip home, a star by now, that Kebede met the local traditional weavers, who were losing their jobs due to a decline in demand. She giggles quietly and sighs: "I promised to come up with something to help." She launched Lemlem (meaning "to flourish" in Amharic), a line of cotton children's clothes hand spun and embroidered in Ethiopia, as a way to inspire economic independence in her native country. "Once mums bought pieces for their kids, of course they asked for bigger sizes for themselves," Kebede boasts. Now the label offers womenswear, gifts and accessories – simple, soft striped shawls and dresses. And as one of few ethical ranges to make it into high-end fashion stores Matches and Net-a-porter.com, it is doing phenomenally well.
"The Lemlem collection has almost sold out at Matches, as it's quite hard to find stylish cover-ups in pure cottons, and the fits and lengths are really on-trend," says Matches buyer Georgina Gainza. "Our customers are interested in the style, primarily, but it's an added bonus that the collection has an ethical approach."

"It's always a tricky thing, trying to make aid sustainable," Kebede says. "It's important that we try and help the workers become independent, so by employing traditional weavers we're trying to break their cycle of poverty, at the same time preserving the art of weaving while creating modern, casual, comfortable stuff that we really want to wear."

"In today's world, celebrity advocates are not rare," Tom Ford admits. "What is rare is to encounter one whose devotion and drive come from a genuine desire to better our world. Liya's work comes from a place of sincerity, and her beauty is much more than skin deep." Ford is not alone in his adoration – Anna Wintour keenly supports her ("She's so willing," Kebede says of the American Vogue editor, "so wonderful"), and she's still in demand to open fashion shows despite being 15 years older than her fellow models. Last month she was named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People, alongside Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Oprah Winfrey.

She finds a balance, Kebede says, between campaigning and fashion, though we speak in a month that also sees her at Cannes promoting her first lead role in a film – Desert Flower, based on the critically acclaimed autobiography about female genital mutilation by Somali model Waris Dirie. Kebede recently travelled back to Djibouti, where they shot much of it, to host a screening in the village where the film is based. "That was amazing," she says, "to reach out to people and show them something and teach them without being forceful, or shoving it down their throat."

As a model her success grows, and as a philanthropist she's taking on ever more campaigns, ever more problems. I ask how the two sides of her life sit with each other, and she answers quickly: "Fashion has always given me a platform, introduced me to inspiring people, allowed me to balance my life, but most importantly, allowed me to do something quite amazing." [guardian] 
For more about Liya kebede, visit
http://www.liyakebede.com/