The Dakar Design Hub: Nurturing Africa'S Fashion Talent Through Education
-
Loading... - Tania Morris
- 21 Sep 2022
- 71 Views
- 0 Like
- 0 Comment
Dakar Design Hub has become a household name in delivering fashion education in Senegal. In 2021, the institution launched its first campus in the remote town of Popenguine, a move that set the tone for the inclusive approach that Dakar Design Hub has adopted for delivering its programs. Through the “Ode to Africa'' event, the Hub gave the citizens of Popenguine an opportunity to experience the Dakar Biennale. Creatives from various African countries collaborated to produce a stellar exhibition which opened up the Biennale to marginalized populations that previously could not access Senegal’s biggest art festival.
We sat down with the Hub’s founder Sophie Nzinga Sy, to know more about how the Dakar Design Hub has been supporting Senegal’s fashion industry.
About the Founder
Sophie Nzinga Sy is a fashion designer, creative director, and founder of the Dakar Design Hub. She attained her formal fashion education at the Parsons School of Fashion Design. After completing her studies, she interned for different brands, before launching her own fashion brand called Sophie Zinga, in New York. Sophie then decided to move her operations to her home country Senegal, however, upon arrival, she encountered challenges in recruiting a competent team. Despite Senegal’s reputation as a fashion hub, Sophie was hit by the harsh reality of the fragmented fashion industry and the lack of foundational support for the fashion education sector. These sentiments were also echoed by her Ghanian and Nigerian colleagues. Determined to fill this gap, Sophie was motivated to establish the Dakar Design Hub as a way of building the capacity of young fashion entrepreneurs.
As a young woman trying to engage governments and banks for support in Africa, establishing the hub was not easy. The vision proved to be too ‘out of the box’ for them because like most people, the stakeholders had limited knowledge of how the fashion industry works. In order to demonstrate confidence in her vision, the daring entrepreneur sold one of her houses to fund the establishment of the Hub. Eventually, institutions such as the British Council, DAB and GIZ saw the initiative’s capacity to generate employment and began to come on board. In 2021, the Hub was officially launched.
In the words of Sophie, “the Dakar Design Hub is all the dreams I had as a 23-year-old!”
The institution offers facilities such as a manufacturing space, a fashion studio, a school, mobility training, and a platform for the textiles of Senegal, whose purpose is to give visibility to the Senegalese textile sector. Recruitment for the studio is currently ongoing. Sophie plans to engage African and international experts to help the young designers who are enrolled with technical knowledge delivered on-site and/or off-site. As a reflection of Sophie’s strong position on the role of education in Africa’s fashion industry, the school is the hallmark of the Dakar Design Hub. Read More…
