Conscious Fashion Campaign honours two African women
THE Conscious Fashion Campaign, an initiative of the Fashion Impact Fund in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Partnerships and the PVBLIC Foundation, announces the new cohort of 10 women entrepreneurs advancing fashion industry change who will be featured in a collective digital billboard campaign throughout New York City during New York Fashion Week from September 9-14, 2022.
With women receiving only 25 percent of news features globally (6th Global Media Monitoring Project, 2021), the Conscious Fashion Campaign amplifies the visibility and increases media representation of women entrepreneurs leading the fashion sector towards a responsible future.
In support of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Conscious Fashion Campaign aims to educate, inform and inspire a diverse media landscape inclusive of women entrepreneurs shaping the fashion industry and society with innovative solutions.
The first edition of the Conscious Fashion Campaign: New York Fashion Week in February 2022 garnered 1.7k digital billboard plays reaching over 512k people.
From September 9 - 14, 2022, the Conscious Fashion Campaign will take over digital billboards during New York Fashion Week to spotlight fashion industry female founders in some of the most highly trafficked advertising locations in New York City including Times Square, the United Nations, and Spring Studios, the home of New York Fashion Week, to amplify their sustainable solutions.
Kerry Bannigan, Executive Director, Fashion Impact Fund shares: “The Conscious Fashion Campaign is a flagship media programme of our work supporting female founders in the fashion industry to accelerate women’s economic empowerment and leadership.
“Understanding the fashion industry’s critical role towards a sustainable future, we are committed to women-led initiatives that reimagine and reshape the future with solutions for a fair, inclusive, and regenerative world.”
The Conscious Fashion Campaign: New York Fashion Week September 2022 edition was open globally to women entrepreneurs, aged 18+, who are transforming fashion by supporting the advancement of at least one Sustainable Development Goal.
The honorees are selected by the advisory committee based on factors including the innovations, solutions, or sustainable business practices they have implemented to support social, environmental, and/or economic impact within the industry and their contribution as a driving force for sustainable development in the fashion ecosystem.
This second edition of the Conscious Fashion Campaign received over 115 applications from 24 countries with two of the honorees from Africa. The two African honorees of the Conscious Fashion Campaign: New York Fashion Week September 2022 are:
Tamburai Chirume is the co-founder of the mother and daughter design collaboration, ONEOFEACH - an African luxury brand that focuses on luxury leather and African-inspired handbags, fashion accessories, apparel and home decor designed in Cape Town and available to the world.
ONEOFEACH has gained recognition in the international space, supplying over 17 outlets worldwide, including the British Museum and the George Washington University Textile Museum in the United States of America.
Tamburai Chirume
Tamburai is an award-winning exporter having received South Africa’s young exporter of the year award to the USA under AGOA in 2021. Tamburri is an entrepreneur that is passionate about empowerment, innovation, diversity, and transformation.
Tamburai is the founder of a Nationwide programme called the Business of Creative Entrepreneurship supported by the US Embassy of South Africa which coaches and guides creative women business owners to become global players in the market through exporting.
The BCE Program has successfully trained over 200 Women since 2018. She is also a proud 2017 alumna of the African Women Entrepreneur Program run by the U.S. Department of State.
Under the ONEOFEACH brand, Tamburai has co-founded with her mother a fashion school entitled TAAF - The African Academy of Fashion focuses on training women from underserved communities and thereafter helping them to secure employment within the industry while contributing to decreasing the rising unemployment rate in South Africa.
Currently the African Academy of Fashion is being supported by The Fashion Impact Fund to train 20 participants in basic garment construction.
Two of Tamburai’s proudest moments within her journey are having authored two secondary school textbooks entitled Clothing and Textile Technology currently being used in the Zimbabwean and Malawian curriculum.
In 2019, Tamburai was also invited as a speaker to Meta/ Facebook business to their annual EMEA staff conference housing 7000 people in Dublin. Tamburai believes that every new day brings unknown endless opportunities and looks forward to continually being an agent of change globally.
Nkwo Onwuka is a seasoned sustainability expert in the African creative community and the founder of NKWO, an artisanal fashion brand at the forefront of sustainability and social innovation in the Nigerian fashion industry.
Nkwo Onwuka
Through the brand's core values of environmental conservation, textile waste reduction and traditional craft skills preservation, Nkwo Onwuka is devoted to creating lasting change on the continent by transforming the lives of women in vulnerable communities, promoting a positive image of Africa through her interpretations of it's rich history and culture and being mindful of the impact these practices have on the planet.