Safa Tusek

I came to a point where I needed to be part of the solution because I believe that the fashion business, especially in Africa, has a lot of challenges.

And my philosophy has always been, OK, the world has been dressing Africa.

Now it's time for Africa to dress the world.

And also in terms of like preservation of, you know, the local fabric.

And I always talk to myself, I mean, there is barely no funding because, you know, people don't necessarily take you seriously.

The thing is, in the way I do things, it's all about, you know, preservation of our local fabric.

It's all about putting Africa on the fashion map.

and i know that there are some resources out there that are actually waiting to be invested in the fashion business so i really wanted to be part of the solution and it's really getting there because when i go to the paris fashion week or to the new york fashion week i know that i'm offering something different on the table because people are just not used to see that type of fabric or that type of style african fashion is really getting extremely popular and we are seeing it a lot

with celebrities and singers like, you know, Beyonce, you know, and people like that.

I guess I'm really driven by a purpose and I'm convinced that, as I said earlier, that there is a big future with African fashion.

And it takes a lot of endurance and courage that I've seen that I have.

But it's a very difficult journey for sure.

But I was able to basically hang in there and to convince people that actually fashion is an economic driver.

It's all about, you know, hanging in there and being convinced about what you do.

It is still quite a challenge, honestly, especially, you know, raising funds, especially when most of your market is outside of your country.

90% of what I sell is sold outside of Senegal.

So when you go global, I mean, you need a lot of resources.

I mean, there are a lot of initiatives that are talking about, you know, supporting the fashion business in Africa, but people are still reluctant.

For some reasons, I don't know why they're still reluctant in Africa.