This week on the podcast we’re joined from Uganda by ex-Balenciaga designer Bobby Kolade, who has set up his fashion house BUZIGAHILL in Kampala, to challenge the Global North's consumption of fast fashion.
Bobby set Buzigahill up as a response to the Global North discarding clothes, often in poor condition, and exporting them to Africa. He was infuriated by the fact that people in the Global North believe that people in Africa (in countries such as Uganda) want sweat-stained and soiled clothes.
Bobby identified that whilst fast fashion in the Global North exists then Uganda will forever be swamped by second-hand clothes, often of poor quality.
Bobby simply determined that enough was enough, and decided to send the second-hand clothes saturating Uganda's textile industry back to where they came from, by upcycling and repurposing them. Buzigahill’s first collection ‘Return to Sender’ does exactly that, selling clothes back to the Global North at an increased price, and is the catalyst that's reigniting Uganda’s textile industry.
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