Meet the West African Production Hub Supplying Fabrics to Luxury Brands
From tie-and-dye to batik, Cabes produces fabrics for local and international brands, including Louis Vuitton.
Welcome back to Africa Reimagined! This week, we’re discussing the ongoing battle to modernise traditional African textiles and artisanal crafts, a topic I’ve explored at length. It’s something Dela Anku of Simisa and I delved into back in February, where she showed us how she’s modernising these traditional techniques for a younger audience. Today we’re travelling to Burkina Faso to meet Karfa Yacoro, general manager of Cabes, a textile company that supplies finished fabrics to global fashion and lifestyle brands, including LVMH’s Louis Vuitton, South Africa’s Lukhanyo Mdingi, Ghana’s Studio 189, Japan’s Itochu, Spain’s Camping, and Belgium’s The Corner. “Leading brands come to us because they are looking for authenticity, quality, and a deeper story,” Karfa said. Launched in 2014, Cabes employs over 2,400 artisans, with annual sales reaching approximately €274,000.
Cabes will also be in London next week for the Future Fabric Expo, alongside Studio 4 Abidjan, a clothing and accessories production hub in Côte d’Ivoire, and Tujikuze, a production company in Kenya. Many international textile companies will also be present, so if you’re interested in pineapple leather or batik, it's definitely worth checking out. You can get your ticket here.
Let’s dive in.
