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How to give African designers access to the international market? How to ensure that their creativity is financially supported and that their brands are supported at each stage of their growth? It is to try to find some answers to these questions that Laureen Kouassi-Olsson, a Franco-Ivorian from the world of finance, founded Birimian in Abidjan.
Created in April and managed by a female-only team, Birimian is today the leading company dedicated to investment and strategic support for African luxury brands. Supported by French, European, African and American capital, it aims to serve as a bridge between the creators of the continent and a fashion market which would henceforth be ready to open up to their talent.
To deepen this furrow, Birimian launched, Monday, June 28, an accelerator dedicated to young African brands, in partnership with the French Fashion Institute (IFM). The World Africa met its founder.
Why did you want to create Birimian?
I based Birimian on three observations. The first is the interest aroused by African creation internationally. When Dior launched its “Cruise” collection, partly printed in Ivory Coast in a Uniwax factory, with Pathé’O and other African designers, I told myself that the rest of the world was now ready to see what we have to offer. The second observation is that digital technology has propelled African brands and stylists onto the international scene.
The third is the strong decorrelation between the image of success that an African stylist can give and reality. All the brands that live mainly in the informal sector have problems of access to financing, fundraising, structuring. So I said to myself that we had to put in place a mechanism that would allow them to have financing, the support necessary for an acceleration of growth and access to financial advice.
Two months after the launch, where are you?
On June 28, we are launching the first accelerator dedicated to emerging African brands with the IFM, which will be responsible for technical expertise. Each year, we will support ten brands which will be selected by a committee of industry experts, fashion journalists, buyers and designers. Once integrated, these brands will benefit from support to define their specific needs and set up a support program.
In addition, still this June 28, concerning the distribution, we sign an exclusive agreement with WSN [anciennement Who’s Next], the main organizer of events dedicated to the distribution of brands in Europe and on the international scene. This opens the doors to essential trade fairs for us in the fashion and design industry. The objective of this partnership is that we bring them brands so that they organize events dedicated to their distribution, promotion and exposure. This partnership makes us the direct intermediaries between brands on the continent and events like Fashion Week.
What brands are you supporting today?
On the investment side, we now have four brands in our portfolio, in which we will invest by the end of the summer. There are three high-end ready-to-wear brands: Ivorian Loza Maléombho, who has already dressed stars like Beyoncé and Alicia Keys; Christie Brown, based in Ghana, with a lot of visibility in the United States and on the continent; Simone and Elise, another Ivorian brand. And finally leather goods with Yeba, based in Brussels and who represents the diaspora.
Today, we receive an average of fifteen inquiries per week from different brands. One of the keys for us is to have access to their data, whether it is the turnover, the year of creation, the number of customers, the proportion of international sales, the mode of distribution and purchase… This is worth gold for key international players.
What is the amount of investments that you offer to the brands that you support?
It all depends on the size and their needs. We start at 30,000 euros and go up to $ 1 million depending on the acceleration strategies. But the power of our model is not there. At the beginning, I started with a pure investment strategy, but a brand doesn’t necessarily need investments when it is not ready to absorb them. Above all, it needs development advice and access to the ecosystem through buyers, strengthening its website, improving its customer relationship.
We offer all this advice thanks to this ecosystem of players who have come together around us. My goal is to make three to four investments per year, to support fifteen brands in development consulting and to allow, with the IFM, to give an acceleration to ten others during the year. brands.
The partnerships signed are exclusively with French players. Why ?
It’s voluntary and perhaps illusory, but I want to offer France and Africa an opportunity to reconnect in another way through fashion. France has a role to play given its role in cultural exception, in the defense of know-how, but there is a need for it to reinvent itself. When Dior makes its “Croisière” collection, it is because it is looking for inspiration. When Louis Vuitton hires Virgil Abloh as artistic director, it is to put more Africa in its collections.
The problem is that this is experienced as cultural appropriation and that everyone attacks them by saying: “You come to us to serve yourself as in the days of colonization, you take the best we have and we do not recover. nothing behind. “Today, our will is to say:” We allow you to take an interest in us as long as you help us to develop. “
Birimian’s vision is to allow the first fashion capital not to be overtaken by Milan and London, which have also understood the issue around African creativity. The one who wins will be the one who knows how to promote the African cultural exception without emptying it of its substance.
Why have renowned stylists like Pathé’O or Alphadi never really been able to export outside Africa?
It is a textbook case that fascinates and saddens me at the same time. Alphadi was worn by Madonna, stars in shambles, but like Pathé’O, he missed his digital revolution. Today, everyone has a hundred followers on Instagram or Facebook, no more. Loza Maléombho has 70,000. We want to promote digitally integrated brands. Brands that have been created through digital technology, which distribute and communicate with it. I believe in our success because social networks are for us a major vector of awareness, distribution and exposure. Without it, it is difficult for us to access international markets.
African stylists have they not also tended to favor a fashion designed only for an African audience?
It is indisputable. There are three types of marks today. Those who made the mistake of conceiving creation only for Africans, which limits them to a regional or continental growth strategy. Those who don’t really know who to turn to but who try to give a more modern image, of a strong, independent woman, with African prints on reinvented cuts. These brands often do not know how to position themselves, because the challenge for them is to define what makes their identity so that they transcend it. Finally, the third type of brands is for me the future of African creation. These are brands that make fashion not for Africans but for the international scene, brands that assume their Africanness to go beyond it.
When will you consider Birimian to be a success?
Birimian will be a success when we will have several brands distributed in all the major temples of consumption, when we will have succeeded in creating real African fashion houses that will have transcended their Africanness and will be found in the wardrobes of all fashionistas.