by Mandy de Waal (@mandyldewaal) Africa’s most successful fabric company isn’t born of the continent, but rather from the Netherlands. Yet Vlisco has become embedded into African culture and trade because of its fierce understanding of customer intimacy.
In London, Nigerian-born Duro Olowu’s spring and summer collection is a riot of colour — bold prints masterfully combined by a man who’s reinventing urban chic. In fact, Olowu has become known as “the father of prints” after arriving in the UK in 2004, and ascending to the top fashion league.
In South Africa, premier fashion label KLûK CGDT has a range of dresses made all the more distinct because of the fabric that was used to make them. More so, Malcolm Kluk and Christiaan Gabriël du Toit’s KLuK CGDT retail outlets were the first to stock bags and scarves using a Dutch fabric that’s become synonymous with high fashion in Africa.
“What surprised me most when I first started working for Vlisco,” says Vlisco CEO, Hans Ouwendijk, “was that the African consumers really feel like they own our brand, not the other way around.” Vlisco, which creates ethnic fabrics and comprises four brands, namely Vlisco, Woodin, Uniwax and GTP, has been doing business in Africa for more than one-and-a-half centuries.
Vlisco’s relationship with the West Africa’s fashion trade started in 1846 and flourished in the late 1800s, after Ghanaian soldiers fighting for the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army favoured the distinct fabrics and took them home with them after their tour of duty. By 1930, Vlisco was working on the ground in West Africa and adapting its ‘wax hollandais’ fabrics specifically for customers in that market.
Today, 95% of Vlisco’s sales come from Africa, and KPMG reports in its custom magazine called Material Gains that, in 2013, the Netherland-based company’s turnover reached a record US$378.4m. This is a big jump on Vlisco’s 2009’s sales of US$234.2m.
Today, the company sells close on 50m metres of fabric into West, Central and southern Africa, and does an encouraging trade with Africa’s diaspora in the US and Europe. The group employs some 2 100 people, 1 500 of whom are based in West Africa.
“We are growing fast in our markets because we are listening to consumers,” Ouwendijk tells KPMG. Vlisco was always a customer-centric company, but Ouwendijk has instituted radical changes since his arrival in 2010. “That is not a unique strategy, but we are one of the few companies doing this specifically for Africa.”
Ouwendijk was brought on board five years ago, when the London-based private equity firm, Actis Capital, acquired 100% of the Vlisco Group for US$151m. At the time of the purchase of Vlisco, Actis said it aimed to double the size the business by changing the business from being production-based to being sales- and marketing-driven.
“The company I inherited was very focused around design and manufacturing,” says Ouwendijk. “Now we focus more on the consumer: on marketing, brand development, innovations and customer loyalty. Being close to our consumer is critical.”
“We get a lot of feedback from our wholesale customers and our stores in West Africa,” adds Ouwendijk. “We also spend a lot of time and money on research: looking at trends in the market, what is happening to particular consumers — different cultural groups, for example — and the key decision-making points for individual consumers.”
What Vlisco has going for it is that the brand has become a material part of culture and commerce in West Africa and beyond. For instance, in Togo, the women who sell the sought-after Dutch Wax fabric are known as “Mama Benz” because their trade has made them wealthy enough to buy luxury vehicles.
Growth for Vlisco means that its customers and markets grow, too.
So, in Ghana, the fashion brand has teamed up with the Joyce Ababio College of Creative Design in Accra to launch the Vlisco Tailor Academy. This is an integrated college that teaches tailoring, and educates young women from previously disadvantaged sectors to reach financial autonomy.
In Nigeria, Vlisco kicked off 2015 by signing a memorandum of understanding with the government to help reinvigorate that country’s moribund textile industry. “The Government of Nigeria is delighted to welcome this investment and partnership from the Vlisco Group into Nigeria,” the country’s Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga noted at the signing ceremony. “We are determined to rebuild this historically important sector with its job-creation impact across the entire value chain, from cotton fields to fashion. We are looking forward to implementing this strategic partnership with the Vlisco Group.”
Government endorsement of the brand aside, Vlisco has teamed up with the Kinabuti Fashion Initiative in Lagos to offer specialised tailoring master classes to women so that they can take their passion for fashion to the next level. Courses there run for four months, during which top students will be offered the opportunity of working with the Vlisco Group and creating collections. These collections will be sold and returned to students to offer them start-up capital to realise their dreams.
In a world where capitalism has created big brands that stand like ‘churches for the shareholder’ — where those who financially invest in the brand get all the real benefit — Vlisco’s growth is buoyed by the fact that it intuitively understands customer intimacy and how to grow with its markets. This is a lesson South African brands moving up into Africa would do well to learn.
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Mandy de Waal is a writer based in Cape Town, South Africa. Follow her on Twitter at @mandyldewaal or on Google+.
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