When brands draft their growth programs for West Africa, market place size is not the only variable to consider ahead of mapping out a retail footprint. Nevertheless it is normally overshadowed by regional heavyweights Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal has been quietly attracting worldwide brand names for in excess of a 10 years thanks in element to its vivid trend tradition.
Earlier this year, Tommy Hilfiger opened a store in the Senegalese funds Dakar at the city’s Sahm searching shopping mall, which underwent a main expansion ahead of the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. The American brand’s community lover is Mercure Intercontinental, a pan-African corporation with deep roots in Senegal working shops for other intercontinental manufacturers these kinds of as the Levi’s outlet it opened in Dakar’s upmarket Sea Plaza shopping mall a number of decades before.
“Senegal is not the most significant economic system in the region, but its relative peaceful atmosphere, favourable regulations and dynamic vogue field are some of the explanations for Sea Plaza’s birth here,” says Hamidou Badji, director of the shopping shopping mall and head of approach and enterprise development at dad or mum enterprise Teyliom Team, a pan-African conglomerate started in 2001 by Senegalese small business mogul Yerim Sow.
Situated on the Corniche, along the highway linking the global airport to the metropolis centre, Sea Plaza overlooks the Atlantic Ocean, permitting adequate inflow of natural light-weight to assistance highlight the marble flooring that ushers website visitors to the 84 boutiques distribute in excess of two stages.
When the shopping mall opened 12 several years back, much more than 60 percent of its style stores have been occupied by foreign manufacturers. Now the proportion hasn’t altered a great deal, with Adidas, Aldo, Benetton, Manager by Hugo Manager and Mango rubbing shoulders with homegrown names and multi-brand vendors this kind of as Awa Diongue’s Nitya by Boursine.
The simple fact that the Teyliom Team operates in more than 12 largely francophone countries throughout Africa in sectors as varied as house, telecommunications, field, finance, aviation and electricity but has only released a single retail complicated — Senegal’s Sea Plaza — implies that the fairly little place of 17 million individuals has a little something specific to present international brand names.
“Senegal is not the most significant economy in the region, but its relative tranquil natural environment, favourable regulations and dynamic style field are some of the reasons for Sea Plaza’s start listed here.”
Senegal’s loaded nearby trend scene has not only served form generations of complex, style-acutely aware people for foreign brands to court, it has also produced a halo outcome for them to bask in.
“[Senegalese fashion designers] have been ambassadors of our excellence [across the wider West and Central African regions] and therefore [international] investors are tempted to established off from in this article — the root,” claims Badji.
A couture funds with street type cred
In West Africa, Senegal is deemed a money of couture craftsmanship and Dakar is its centre of eye-catching street fashion. The place is residence to lots of talented designers, some of whom have emigrated to function somewhere else in the area or developed platforms with both continental or global get to.
Get Adama Ndiaye, a home name in the community trend sector with her individual label Adama Paris. Ndiaye is the founder of the two the long-functioning Dakar Style Week and the broadcast media Trend Africa Channel. Her products and solutions, some of which are manufactured in Morocco, are obtainable regionally and at pick vendors in Europe, the US and Asia.
Even all through the height of pandemic constraints, Ndiaye found a way to organise style 7 days. Held outdoors in a area of baobab trees, the 2020 edition featured themes of sustainability and sluggish trend. All through the calendar year, other occasions are held by area entrepreneurs in Dakar.
1 is Collé Sow Ardo, a professional of completely ready-to-put on created from woven loincloth who holds a pan-African trend party known as Sira Vision. Like a lot of of her contemporaries, she has a area boutique of her personal and wholesale channels in other French-talking African marketplaces — in this circumstance, in Brazzaville, Congo and Libreville, Gabon.
A different bigwig in Senegal’s clothing small business is Oumou Sy. Typically dubbed the queen of Senegalese couture, she has sold classic attire and jewellery for a long time. Obtaining opened a community modelling and style academy, she now counts superstar shoppers such as Grammy award-winning Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour. Other designer names to know involve Shalimar Couture by Diouma Dieng Diakhaté and newcomer Diarra Bousso.
The broader resourceful industries in Dakar are also flourishing with the start of several artwork festivals which normally element design-mindful photographers like Omar Victor Diop who support to place the state on the intercontinental vogue radar.
A mix of standard and western attire
Model awareness of world wide luxury and designer labels is somewhat high in Dakar, a cosmopolitan city with French colonial period influences boasting 3.9 million persons in the wider metropolitan location.
On the other hand, a choice for regional fashion is apparent amongst particular urbanites and people over and above the cash, thanks to the country’s exclusive mix of way of life, local weather, customs and religion. And due to the fact Muslims make up 94 per cent of the nation, modesty remains an essential factor for numerous. Some 8 out of 10 Senegalese don regular attire at the very least just one day of the 7 days, according to a study by a nearby newspaper.
“You can’t put on jeans or a accommodate to a traditional marriage… You have to costume adequately according to custom and domestic tendencies, like [wearing] the quite well-known Senegalese boubou. Friday is for jummah (Muslim Friday midday prayer), which needs decent outfits as effectively,” says Dakar-dependent product, Mareme N’diaye.
The boubou, which is also well-known in other West African nations, is a mild and flowing garment, manufactured from wax prints or bazin fabrics for adult males and gals.
“I truly don’t see the reasons behind [certain customer] issues that large-avenue and mid-industry [foreign] brand names out there at the malls are also costly. Some boubous expense far more,” claims Assane Mbaye, culture journalist at nearby newspaper Sud Quotidien.
Finally, however, numerous Senegalese, “must go to perform and need to have to dress in corporate garments and… people go to activity arenas, dining places, parks and seashores throughout the weekend [so] people who can pay for [new light prêt-a-porter clothes] go to malls and boutiques to get them,” N’diaye adds. “Most of which are not created below.”
Rue Jules Ferry and other streets in the Dakar-Plateau spot of the town are residence to a cluster of modest upmarket multi-brand boutiques offering each regional and global manufacturers which provide upper center-class residents. But the genuine powerhouse retailer in Senegal is a man who has built an empire all-around an import enterprise underpinned by franchise agreements with intercontinental trend and sportswear models.
The sportswear link
Adnan Houdrouge is the founder of Mercure Worldwide, a team which operates in 12 primarily francophone African countries but is headquartered off-shore in Monaco. Born in Dakar, he is a member of Senegal’s sizeable Lebanese local community which has been a conduit for worldwide trade in the region for over a century.
Models like people in Mercure’s portfolio goal not only middle and higher-center course Senegalese and Senegalese-Lebanese, but also the lots of French nationals and other expats based in the state.
However Mercure was shaped in the 1980s, its stable of global brands expanded drastically in the 2000s. Alongside its Town Sport multi-model stores and On line casino hypermarkets, the team has signed distribution or franchise deals with brands such as Nike, Adidas, Diesel, Manager by Hugo Boss, Guess, Aldo, Courir, Go Sport and Levi’s for much of the francophone Africa region.
Mercure is also said to have financial passions in some of the Senegalese shopping centres exactly where it operates shops for its husband or wife brands these kinds of as Dakar Metropolis and Sahm.
Johanna Houdrouge, daughter of the company’s founder, is specifically energetic in the area arm of the enterprise as she was also born in Senegal.
It is no coincidence that the sportswear class is a major earner in Senegal for the Houdrouge family members. According to former wrestling coach Cisse Abdul, big foreign athletic makes are in desire for the reason that several locals are exercise lovers many thanks in aspect to the legacy of environment-famed Senegalese footballers and sportsmen.
“There are fitness centers at just about every road corner,” he suggests. “Although, there are more cost-effective applied sporting activities dresses flooding the market place, plenty of individuals nevertheless decide for new [products from top brands] for their toughness,” Abdul claims.
“Don’t fail to remember the influence of the rap and hip hop lifestyle we have right here on our costume codes. Beside the quite well-liked Senegalese audio — the mbalax — individuals, mostly the young era, also pay attention to foreign tunes particularly American rap tunes, which some community artists also adapt in their recordings [so] it is not unusual to place younger adult males on the street carrying loose suit sweatshirts and hoodies, branded baseball caps, basketball jerseys around denims trousers with Timberland boots to match,” Abdul adds.
At the Sea Plaza purchasing shopping mall, where by the Houdrouge family members operates sportswear and vogue outlets, Teyliom’s Badji states that every day visitor numbers have developed to just about 6000, prompting curiosity from much more models — each international and nearby — to hire house there.
Nevertheless there may possibly be upcoming possibilities for worldwide trend gamers in other cities such as Saint Louis, most worldwide style retail stays concentrated in Dakar.
Issues offset by substantial alternatives
Like in several emerging markets all-around the earth, there are several boundaries to entry and significant problems for foreign businesses the moment they start off working in Senegal.
This points out why numerous models sense they need to have to navigate the marketplace with the enable of a regional franchise or joint-undertaking spouse. According to the US Global Trade Administration, corruption and sluggish bureaucracy are components that preserve the region ranking low in terms of simplicity of performing company, even while enhancements have been created in the latest years.
For trend gamers, counterfeiters and gray sector traders are a sizeable issue. People who store outside the large malls normally slide sufferer to fakes at neighborhood marketplaces.
“Sometimes you simply cannot inform them apart — the primary from the phony. They search reliable but the only change is price tag. They sell cheaper but are shortly exposed to put on and tear,” says Issoufou Soumaré, researcher in economics and management at Cheikh-Anta-Diop University in Dakar.
“Secondly, we really do not know who is authorised to wholesale or retail global models there. At the malls we know they most most likely have a licence but what about people offering at open markets?”
Razack Badji is a businessman at the large Kermel Market situated in the heart of Dakar. He operates a vogue store and receives deliveries every two weeks but suggests he does not know no matter whether his goods arrive from genuine companies.
“We are equipped most of the top rated European clothes manufacturers. Our suppliers provide merchandise from Lebanon, China, Turkey and Morocco with stickers on the clothing. They are less costly than all those offered in the malls but we really do not know if they are from the legitimate designers. Often we are harassed by the law enforcement or municipal officials to exhibit our licence. We negotiate and settle with hard cash and which is it,” he says.
For regional Senegalese designers, the scourge is not counterfeits but feugue-diaye, which implies second-hand clothes in the area Wolof language. According to UN Comtrade, the trade in Senegal is believed to amount of money to 18,500 tonnes of applied clothing imports each 12 months. Quite a few consider that these kinds of cheap utilised overseas model clothing undermines demand from customers for regionally designed new apparel.
Submit-pandemic financial investment potential clients
The point that Senegal has outsized regional economic and political influence helps make it a a lot more interesting market than nations around the world with similar populations. Just one reason for this is that Dakar is residence to the headquarters of the Central Financial institution of West African States (BCEAO) which serves international locations sharing the CFA franc as forex: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.
“Senegal is the focal position when it will come to small business and finance in the West African Financial and Financial Union (UEMOA) which is the equal of the [former] EEC (European Financial Group). Every single large small business has a existence below. Traders are craving to occur here,” claims Soumaré.
In the years primary up to the pandemic, Senegal was a single of the speediest-developing economies on the African continent and, though Covid-19 hit the region challenging, it is now rebounding many thanks in portion to funding from the Intercontinental Monetary Fund (IMF).
“Senegal is the focal place when it will come to business enterprise and finance in the West African Financial and Monetary Union… Every huge business enterprise has a presence in this article. Investors are craving to come right here.”
According to a assertion made in March by Edward Gemayel, an advisor in the African Section at the IMF, “the Senegalese overall economy regained its pre-pandemic development route in 2021, led by potent industrial output and the providers sector. Serious GDP development is estimated at 6.1 p.c, about 1 share stage larger than previously expected.”
“The war in Ukraine is, however, casting a shadow on the macroeconomic outlook [in Senegal]. Soaring worldwide meals and vitality selling prices have included to existing plan troubles, which include the lingering effects of the pandemic, regional insecurity, and growing social needs in the operate up to the July parliamentary elections.”
When some community analysts have criticised Senegal’s government for its “sluggishness” in tackling youth unemployment, other individuals consider the region is heading in the right route, many thanks to many financial growth jobs that have been concluded or underway.
There is the new worldwide airport, a new university, a new 50,000-seat stadium and the a short while ago inaugurated $1.3 billion commuter railway that will hook up Diamniadio, a satellite town at the moment currently being constructed about 40km from Dakar. Apparently, many permits have been issued for the constructing of condition-of-the-art malls in the new town.
According to Vincent Martin, director of tax M&A at Deloitte’s Luxembourg place of work, who recently penned a white paper describing Senegal as “ripe” for foreign investment decision in the post-pandemic period, “Senegal is and should really stay an appealing jurisdiction… irrespective of the recent health and fitness and financial crisis.”
Even though Senegal will under no circumstances contend with the giants of the African continent this sort of as Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Egypt and Morocco, it does provide fashion businesses with a promising emerging market to consider as they search past the region’s major customer economies.
Or as Martin puts it, “of all French-talking African international locations, [Senegal] unquestionably provides a incredibly welcoming natural environment for foreign buyers thanks to the various strengths it delivers.”
