Heritage

Rwandan fashion house sets sights on Kenyan market

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Ms Inés Cuatrecasas and Mr Marc Oliver, who established the Mille Collines, a fashion house in Rwanda in 2007, are looking to expand the brand in East Africa with the recent launch of an outlet in Nairobi. Photo/COURTESY

Mille Collines is here. However, Mille Collines should not be confused with Hotel Mille Collines that acquired fame in Hotel Rwanda movie — it is a Rwandan fashion house that is looking to expand in East Africa.

The fashion house, which opened its first shop in the outskirts of Kigali in Rwanda, now seeks to spread its wings in the region.

“We chose Kenya because we know it well and the Village Market matched the standards of the brand,” says Marc Oliver.

Both Mr Oliver and Ms Inés Cuatrecasas are frequent visitors to Kenya.

Millie Collines, which means “a thousand hills” has found space at the ground floor of the Village Market shopping mall.

Ms Cuatrecasas and Mr Oliver, who are Spanish, say their drive to take the Millie Collines brand to the rest of East African market arises from a growing appreciation of fashion made in Africa.

This is on top of their presence in Europe and the US.

Mr Oliver says that Mille Collines strives to give its customers a whole shopping experience. “We are not just a shop with clothes,” he says.

And there is more to it: From the appearance, layout, staff to the smell of the shop – incense is regularly burnt in this outlet – are all there to give the customer a complete brand experience.

Established in Kigali in 2007, the fashion house has grown to a workshop of 28 staff.

It also works with co-operatives outside the city. The co-operatives make accessories like buttons and do embroidery.

However, the proprietors do the clothes on their own to maintain quality.

“Mille Collines is built on quality, African tradition and is trendy,” adds Ms Cuatrecasas.

She stresses that the quality is at the core of their brand philosophy.

As a result, this has won it followers in Barcelona, Spain — their home country, but its biggest market is in the US where they sell through Macy’s, a department store.

The two fashion designers say the fashion house concentrates on women’s clothing line for now. However, they did not disclose the path they would take next.

To sell their products, they have adopted two strategies.

For the European and US markets, they sell through stores that reflect their values and philosophy. They also do special collaborative collection with some of them.

And in East Africa, they own stores in order to control the quality of the service, layout and time.

They are looking to open a shop in Mombasa next then head to Tanzania and Uganda. “The response here has been good,” says Mr Oliver.

However, Rwandan fashion scene is coming up fast and in a structured way due to formal training unlike in Kenya, he observes.

Apart from working with the co-operatives, the staff in Kigali are trained regularly.

In the next few weeks, Mr Oliver says, a pattern cutting expert, a friend from Spain would train Millie Collines employees on pattern cutting — a core skill in making of garments.

Mille Collines’ style can be described as classic with an African edge.

The designers use a lot of neutral colours on natural fabrics like cottons, raffia and silks.

The African prints and accessories like the buttons add a bit of colour to the garments.

Unlike the European way of introducing new fashion through two annual collections, Mille Collines have fortnight collections to give something fresh to the customers who frequent their stores. This, they say, works well for them.

Being a small fashion house, they are able respond to client demands, adapt to market needs and unveil the latest trends faster.

However, they are often forced to make some tough decisions given their small operations.

Wholesale outlets seeking large consignments have approached Mille Collines, but they decline the orders to avoid compromising the quality of their products.

They also lack the capacity to meet such demands.

“Taking such orders can be good for the business, but we will not compromise on quality,” says Ms Cuatrecasas.

Success has not come easy, especially in the West. The designers had to overcome the perception that African goods are of poor quality.

“People in Europe only know the negative about Africa. Its war and disasters and do not believe that something this beautiful can be made in Africa,” says Ms Cuatrecasas.

She adds that to get their apparel and accessories into these markets they put in a lot of guarantees before they took a risk with Mille Collines.

To her it was also not ideal, the fashion stores were still playing safe as they recovered from the recession.

However, with the expansion into the East African market, Mille Collines hopes to reflect the strengths of African fashion with a modern touch.

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