Meet Two Women Bringing African Fashion to the Rest of the World

Kiran Yoliswa and Alae Ismail are two young women who aren't scared of a bit of hard graft. Which is lucky, because the task they've set themselves is by no means a small one. As the founders of Styled By Africa, a curated online boutique of the very best in contemporary African fashion, not only do the pair want to help grow the global reputation of the African fashion industry by bringing designers' clothes to an international market, but also challenge and change people's perceptions of what they think African fashion is.

"Styled By Africa started as a blog – we felt frustrated at how young African people across the world were being portrayed in the media and wanted to create a platform that people could feel reflected in and connected to," says Kiran. "Fashion felt like a good way to do that." Kiran and Alae first met at university when they were both studying biomedicine and "quickly bonded over the fact that we hated science and didn't want to become doctors like everyone else on our course". Alae had always been interested in fashion, working as a stylist part time during her studies, while Kiran's passion lay in Africa and development.

When the time came to look for work after graduating, the two were adamant that their careers should reflect their passions. But finding the right job proved tricky. "We were looking for different jobs and felt like there wasn't anything out there that we really wanted to do," says Kiran. "So instead, we thought we'd create our dream job and see what happened."

And so, in 2012, their blog was born. That Christmas, the pair travelled to Zimbabwe to meet designers and put on their first event, bringing together likeminded creative people across the fashion, food and music worlds. The response back home to that trip only confirmed what the pair already knew: how woefully misunderstood and misrepresented Africa's creative industries are in the UK and beyond.

"When we came back, people were looking at all our photos from our trip on our website and were saying things like, 'That's so cool! I didn't know people were doing things like that in Zimbabwe,'" says Kiran. "And we were like, 'Er, yeah!' That was really exciting for us, just being able to show all these different stories from different places."

After just six months of blogging, Kiran and Alae realised there was a huge interest in the designers they were showcasing, and more and more readers were asking where they could buy the clothes the girls were writing about.

"We were trying to connect our readers with the designers, but more often than not the designer would be somewhere like Ghana and the whole process of them actually getting the product was really difficult. And then when we spoke to the designers, they told us their biggest challenge for growth was accessing international markets. If you're a designer in these countries, the local market is small – not many people can afford your clothes. A fashion designer can get by, but can't build a long-term sustainable business.

"Naively, we thought, 'Okay, we have the readers that want to buy the stuff and the designers who need a way of reaching them – all we have to do is turn our blog into a shop.'" Unfortunately, businesses don't get off the ground quite as easily as that, as the girls themselves will attest. However, that's not to say they hadn't hit on a savvy idea. Soon after, Kiran and Alae submitted their business proposal (written during stolen breaks in a cupboard at their day job) to a young entrepreneurs initiative and ended up winning mentorship from Richard Branson. It was this that gave them the validation they felt they needed to continue and, crucially, "the confidence to launch the shop".

Since then, the pair have made frequent trips to Africa to source the best in contemporary fashion design and unearth exciting emerging designers. Their site (and small shop in Brixton) is home to an expertly curated collection that serves customers across Europe and the US. There's no arguing these are pieces that could easily command a higher price tag than they do – so why do we seem to expect less from African fashion?

"I think, for a long time, the perception has been that anything that comes out of Africa is 'crafty'," says Kiran. "People think it's not designed or has any intellectual, creative thought behind it. That's the big thing that we're trying to challenge." Not only that, but the pair are keen also to emphasise that African fashion is more than just bright, colourful prints. "African design isn't just about print. And it's not just about the traditional West African wax prints, as that's not representative of the whole region," says Kiran. "Where Alae is from in east Africa, a lot of the designs are actually white with a small border of colour, while in south Africa the designs are much more graphic."

While Kiran and Alae are eager to showcase Africa's design talent, they are equally concerned with ensuring that the industry they are helping to grow remains a sustainable and ethical one. "In terms of production, one of our core values is using this platform to create jobs for young people in African countries, particularly for women," says Kiran. "Most of our brands are owned by women, but a lot of our production managers and seamstresses are women, too – it's a really high impact industry."

"We've also partnered up with the ethical fashion initiative and they have a whole team dedicated to impact development," says Alae. "You can see how many women have gone into full time or part time employment and how much they've learnt, which is amazing."

It's been almost four years since Styled By Africa started, but there's still a lot more Kiran and Alae want to achieve. "It's been an amazing journey," says Alae, "but we've got a lot of big plans still. At the moment we're really just focusing on the business side of things, getting our products up to scratch and hopefully getting to Africa again this year to uncover more emerging brands."

Could Styled By Africa be the Net-a-Porter for African fashion? "That's what we're aiming for," says Alae.