How Kenyan Fashion Designers Are Leading A Wave of Sustainability by Protesting Textile Waste with Their Designs

Nairobi, Kenya – The dawn barely colours the sky with a soft hue of gray when traders at Gikomba, the largest secondhand market in East Africa, start arranging their merchandise on low wooden stalls. Thrift clothes they buy by weight in large, sealed plastic bundles are carefully sorted by category. A pile of jeans. A pile of tennis shoes. Bras of various colours and sizes hanging neatly in a row.

Shopping secondhand is so popular it has developed its own vocabulary and etiquette. Secondhand clothes shipped from abroad account for a large sector of the Kenyan economy. In 2021, the country imported $169m worth of them. The Gikomba market alone provides employment to about 65,000 people. Critics said it comes at the expense of the home textile industry, which struggles to compete, and the environment.

To hold a mirror up to the industry’s environmental and social sins, the creative team behind Nairobi Fashion Week organised a photo shoot at the dump site. The shoot is part of its Just Fashion campaign, which runs from April to November.

“We are not trying to fight the secondhand. It provides employment and affordable clothing to millions of people. We advocate for responsible consumer choices and government regulation policies to make fashion sustainable. What people buy makes a difference,” said Idah Garette, an environmental activist and model who participated in the shoot.

The organic silk dress with hand-painted sustainability messages that Idah wears on the campaign photos is a creation of Deepa Dosaja, one of Kenya’s high-end designers at the forefront of promoting ethical fashion choices. “I have seen a positive change,” Dosaja said. “People who used to shop in Dubai or London are now proud to wear Kenyan. Ethical fashion is not only better for the environment. It creates dignified and meaningful employment.”

Today, young designers are shaping Kenya’s fashion market and reinventing its long and conflicted relationship with the secondhand. Maisha by Nisria is a young fashion studio. Its designers, aged 21 to 28, create original pieces from secondhand garments and discarded fabrics. Shopping in places like Gikomba is part of their creative process and a way to reduce the environmental impact of their trade.

This article was originally seen in Aljazeera

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