Last week, we introduced you to trail blazers SAWA, a sneaker brand 100% made in Africa. We continue with the second segment of our interview where we talk about which celebrities they hope will don their shoes, who will be showcasing them during this coming New York fashion week and their thoughts on Hakuna Mata! If you missed the first part of the interview, click and find it here.
MISSLA LIBSEKAL: Doing this project which sounds amazing yet challenging at the same time, what kinds of things are you excited about for the project, the brand?
FRÉDÉRIC BARTHÉLEMY: We’ve established connections with many people. I am amazed every time there is a new press article about us or when we get contacted by a shop. For example we were contacted by a shop in South Korea, it’s our first season! We are seeing interest from all over the world. We will be participating in a fashion show in New York this September too which I am very excited about. We are pleased to see how much interest there is for our brand, all the contacts that we are getting. What this can bring back to our partners in Cameroon, that is really exciting. They are really proud of what is going on and being in magazines in the US or Europe, it’s a great thing.
ML: Who would you like to wear SAWA shoes?
FB: I don’t know, perhaps some famous American famous like Will Smith, Pharrell Williams, Jay-Z…. It is not limited to them of course, but we would be completely amazed. I can only imagine what it would mean for the people in Cameroon. Their shoes being worn by some of the top artists in the US, that would be fantastic!
Sneak Preview: Sawa Shoes – The newest colour variations for this Autum/Winter 2010!
Sneak Preview: Sawa Shoes – The newest colour variations for this Autum/Winter 2010!
ML: Are there any “African Myths” that you would like to dispel? For example when I was young, I got the question, do I speak African which I hardly knew how to respond to then?
FB: For us it is a little bit different being based in Europe, Africa is much closer… There are a lot of people with African origins here but yes there are a lot of myths in terms of organization, ability to produce a lot of crazy things. Just the fact that we are able to produce nice sneakers from Africa, it gives the image that yes of course Africa is well developed. They absolutely have the same talents there as in the West and they can show it to you! That is the best way to answer this for us.
If we were able to produce electronic components, maybe we could try to do the same thing and bring the same message but as fashion is our thing that’s what we are focusing on. At the end of the day there is still this image that fashion is supposed to be coming from the most industrialized countries, like from the US, France & Italy.
For us to come with a product that is not “ethnic” like jewelry, tunics, scarves etc.. which are nevertheless nice, we are just outside of the usual cliche about Africa. It’s a regular product that you would normally expect to come from Japan the US, or Europe.
ML: I read your brand story, which makes reference to “Hakuna mata” and it made me laugh, it made think this is brilliant, it’s funny and to the point yet a bit cheeky too!
We have always been told beautiful stories about Africa: the man of the jungle, King Kong and his beloved woman climbing the roofs of New York, hakuna mata!!! That was funny, wasn’t it:
And we don’t forget the stories for the grown ups; the super-heroes of the IMF, the good souls of the World Bank and the top economists, convinced that the African Miracle is about to happen… one day or the other. That’s also funny, isn’t it.
The SAWA story belongs to a different kind. It is a story about people, a story about a challenging economy against the North to South flow. Purchase raw materials in Africa and transform them into finished goods… in Africa!
We don’t promise to donate part of our income to some charity association for each pair of shoes purchased, nor to build a pipeline towards Manhattan.
Our shoes are made in Africa and will be made in Africa as far as you will enjoy wearing them. This is not the only promise we make.
We spent time in Africa working on the brand, grasping the spirit of it. This was real fun!
FB: Medhi will love this because he is the one that wrote it hahaha. At first we had different views about it, I thought it was a bit too direct you proved that he was right!
We are tired of people bullshitting and being kind of arrogant. For example just the other day, I was talking with this guy. I didn’t mention anything about SAWA etc., but we had just attended the same venue, a fashion show. A few people recognized me, and mentioned that I was working with SAWA asking a few questions. This is how it went.
Guy: “hmmm well yes, I don’t really like this too much!”
FB: I thought well yes, ok that is fine I didn’t care. Anyway, I didn’t want to argue but this guy came back, obviously he wanted to argue. So he came back to me, and said
Guy: “I don’t like what you are doing. It’s not nice!”
FB: So I asked why?
Guy: “Because you are producing in Africa, you are taking advantage. You should be giving some money back”
FB: I thought to myself what’s your point? To me that is exactly what we don’t like. Of course it is great that there are charities helping in Africa, helping people who are suffering, giving assistance. That is great. But that someone could be naive enough to think that people in Africa are not adults nor skilled. That there aren’t enterprising people. It’s crazy it’s this kind of attitude which I think is really bad. These kinds of people think that they are right, but at the end of the day, it is a strange way to look at things.
ML: That is one of the things that I have realized about doing Another Africa, the word Africa is very loaded. People automatically want to assume that charity and Africa are de facto synonymous. For example, if someone tells you they are producing in China due to costs etc, nobody would be asking you – So what are you giving back to the Chinese people?
FB: That is exactly what I mean. If you produced in Shanghai, nobody would question anything but if you produce in Africa you have to explain…. Well obviously we have to explain as well since that is also part of our motto, “SAWA – Made in Africa.” If we were producing in Italy we would be saying it too for instance but we would not have to be reasoning with people about it. But because it is Africa then we have to come with an explanation, then after two minutes people come up with a charity tag. Which is kind of a pain in the neck. However we don’t want to come across as being arrogant, we are a tiny brand we are just producing some shoes. I think this is slowly changing though and it is even having an impact locally. When you work over there with people you can change their self-image. Locally, people tend to think that because they are African producers, they are not as good as… If you come not as a charity, but rather a company and you just develop the same quality by an African company as you would with a Chinese or German manufacturer; first people will deliver, because they can deliver and then they realize that they can be as productive as their global counterparts, which changes their minds.
ML: It’s interesting that you have your website in Japanese as well…. do you foresee this being a big market for you?
FB: There are different aspects to it. Firstly, Japanese people have historically been attracted to luxury products so it’s been one of our goals that our sneakers be well positioned, having a good image, placed in the best shops and naturally Japan was part of this strategy. Secondly, we also thought that having the site in Japanese would be interesting and would give the brand an extra quality. Playing on the gap in perceptions that people typically have between their image of Africa and what Japan is. We’ve been stocked this season by Comme des Garçons in Japan, and are planning for next season too, as well as with Dover Street Market in London.
ML: For your first season, you were stocked at some trendy innovative boutiques, what kind of shops ideally do you want SAWA to be stocked at?
FB: Yes we were stocked at Comme des Garçons Tokyo, Dover Street Market in London, Black Block in Paris, Soula in Brooklyn, Wood Wood in Berlin. We are developing our distribution/retailer network quite rapidly. We will have new stores this coming A/W and S/S 2011 in Singapore, one in South Africa, many planned for Italy and France. We are also in talks with retailers in Germany and South Korea. We are developing all this by ourselves. As far as the distribution is concerned, we are already very happy with the shops that we are in so far; they are excellent shops and we couldn’t have exceeded our dreams to start off with such great locations. In the future, say in the US we could imagine at some stage to work with retailers like Barney’s or even Urban Outfitters, but is is also a question of volume and production capacity. For our next step we plan to include some wider retailers, beyond the prestigious one-off boutiques but it’s important for us to keep a good distribution network especially as the shoes are affordably priced, the shoes can reach the main stream but we have to be well positioned.
ML: Do you plan to sell in Africa, you mentioned there will be a one retailer in South Africa.
FB: Yes, we will have one in South Africa, we do want more in Africa. It’s important for us to be in the rights shops to find the right places in Africa. There are nice shops in Africa, but it is kind of a paradox. They need to see our shoes in the best shops in Europe, Asia or the US, before they will want to distribute them in Africa…
ML: Are their any African brands or creators etc. that you would like to recommend to Another Africa readers?
FB: Along the way we are also discovering local brands and when we like them, we try to show them, bringing them to Europe. Perhaps not to sell them but to at least show them like the brands we are promoting such as the soap, notebooks, matches etc. step by step, we would like to show them. If we are able to do something, we are happy.
Also in the process of doing SAWA, we discovered Edun. It is not truly “African” per say, but they are doing a lot for Africa. Basically we both have a similar idea though they aren’t able to produce 100% in Africa, they are doing as much as possible there and what are doing is great. We are actually going to participate in their runway show this September during NY Fashion week. The male models will be wearing SAWA shoes.
ML: Lastly, can you tell us a little more about your slogan, “Vote with your feet”?
FB: Yeah… Vote With Your Feet! This comes from our take of an American expression. Say when you disagree with something, you just vote with your feet. For example if you don’t like a supermarket, you don’t like what they are doing, say for example Walmart’s policy, you stop going to Walmart! Just an example…. just kidding hahaha. We are trying to use it in a positive way meaning if you like Africa, if you like what we are doing, then vote with you feet. Buy our shoes. Let your feet reflect your feelings!
Thank you SAWA for this great interview, and people let’s vote with our feet!
For more information on SAWA shoes check out their website www.sawashoes.com and more details on their facebook fan page!
All images courtesy of SAWA Shoes.
