From Nigeria’s handwoven aso-oke and indigo-dyed adire to Burkina Faso’s faso dan fani, traditional fabrics are being reimagined.

At African Fashion Week Sandton, Botswana designer Keabetswe Mogatusi’s Technicolour Dreamcoat glows beneath the bright lights of the runway. An eye-catching piece with bright geometric patterns, its design draws on traditional African craftsmanship, with a modern flair.The statement coat is part of Mogatusi’s Afro-Futurist collection and combines Malian fabrics, hemp-cotton blends and hand-painted textiles, the majority of which are sourced from within Africa. It is a bold, new vision of what African fashion can be when local materials and craftsmanship meet contemporary design. It represents a growing movement among designers to place African materials and craftsmanship at the centre of global fashion.Across the continent, this movement is drawing renewed attention to Africa’s rich textile heritage. From Nigeria’s handwoven aso-oke and indigo-dyed adire to Burkina Faso’s faso dan fani, traditional fabrics are being reimagined for modern consumers and runways around the world.Nowhere is this more visible than in Burkina Faso, where faso dan fani (a handwoven cotton cloth once at risk of being crowded out by cheaper imports) has become both a fashion statement and an act of economic defiance. Woven in narrow strips on traditional looms, using cotton grown, spun and dyed within the country, the fabric carries a symbolism that predates its current popularity on the runway. In the 1980s, it was championed by revolutionary leaders as a mark of national self-sufficiency. Designers like François Yaméogo have since used it to create the contemporary silhouettes their models wear, tailoring it into jackets, blouses and skirts.

Fashion for change

Yet behind the celebration of African fashion lies a contradiction. Africa is one of the world’s major cotton producers, yet it nets only a fraction of its value once cotton is transformed into yarn, fabric and finished garments. Exported as raw fibre, spun and woven abroad (in countries such as India, China or Bangladesh) it is frequently brought back into the country that produced it at a premium.

The injustice is stark. The African continent, particularly Central and Western African countries, produces roughly 12% of the world’s cotton but exports 90% of it as raw material before it can be turned into a higher-value finished product such as fabric or clothing.

As a crop, raw cotton generates income for smallholder farmers, but the valuable economic benefits often come later, during spinning, weaving, dyeing, manufacturing and branding. These are the production stages where jobs are created, profit margins expand, and products become globally competitive.

The result is a familiar pattern across many global commodity industries. A country supplies the raw material (without which the final products that sell at a profit could not be made) but receives only a small fraction of the finished product’s value. The African continent exports cotton fibre while importing textiles and apparel, leaving designers and manufacturers dependent on fabrics produced elsewhere.

Designers team up with weavers

In Nigeria, the shift is less about reviving a single fabric than rethinking how designers source their materials. Labels such as Onalaja and Emmy Kasbit are building direct relationships with weavers producing aso-oke and adire, transforming the perception of these textiles from ceremonial cloth into daily wear.

Earlier this year, Connect Nigeria reported that designers are citing rising import costs and currency pressures as reasons to use domestic, local fabrics, alongside a growing appetite from international buyers for fabrics and clothing with an authentic story. That appetite has already reached high fashion. Lisa Folawiyo’s Ankara pieces have appeared on international red carpets and in global fashion magazines, showing that local appeal and luxury can coexist. Her work, alongside similar collections like Mogatusi’s, argues for a version of African fashion where the raw material’s origin isn’t a footnote, or something to be ignored, but rather the main selling point.

Bet on cotton industry

Sensing a momentum behind this renewed interest in African-made fashion, Afreximbank has bet on the industry growing. In 2024, the pan-African bank backed a $5bn Africa Textile Renaissance Plan, developed with ARISE IIP and Rieter. It aims to build 500,000 tonnes of cotton transformation capacity and create half a million jobs, with dedicated support for African fashion designers built into the masterplan.

Afreximbank has already put this idea into action, and Benin has shown it can work. Special industrial zones throughout the country backed by Afreximbank have increased textile export revenues more than twentyfold since 2019, turning the country into a supplier for global brands including Nike, Zara and H&M.

And the ambition doesn’t stop there. Speaking to EIN News earlier this year, George Elombi, the president and chairman of Afreximbank, said that within 15 to 20 years, Africa should exit the raw cotton export business entirely, moving fully into textile and clothing exports instead.

If Afreximbank’s 20-year vision holds firm, the use of cotton in African-made clothing such as Mogatusi’s Technicolour Dreamcoat will be the norm, rather than the exception. From crop growth in the field to the finished garment, the process will be fully African.

Mogatusi’s coat, stitched from Malian fabric and hand-painted textiles sourced almost entirely from the continent, is proof of what can be achieved when garment production begins and ends in Africa without being outsourced to overseas factories and finished elsewhere.

This article is from a new series, ‘from Cotton to Cloth’, which explores Africa’s cotton opportunity and its potential to drive industrialisation.

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