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100% Cotton Ghanian Cloth, Ghanian MicroCredit Tailors, Organic Design
 

During our stay of over two months in Accra, Ghana, West Africa we discovered two things: fantastic 100% cotton fabrics with unique patterns and finish and a microcredit group of women and men tailors needing to improve their business by exporting fine garments abroad. Elodie had a notebook full of Asia-inspired design ideas she had been playing with since we entered West Africa in January 2003.

We had been looking for an NGO project to work on while here. We created this business asking ourselves "why not create our own humanitarian project where we form a partnership with local Ghanian fabric producers and Ghanian microcredit tailors with French fashion design to market to Industrialized nation's?" African Cotton, Fabrics and Tailors; Paris Designer, Asian style inspiration: AfroParAsian Designs was born...
 

Elodie Massa: Upcoming French fashion creator currently based in Paris. Has been creating fashion shows and events with her plant-inspired designs, kimono collections. Previous to entering the fashion world two years ago she worked as a costume designer for theatre productions in New Caledonia, Oceania and in Paris.

Jason The Journeyman: has been on the road for more than three years taking a look at what is happening worldwide first-hand. Interested in traditional designs and products, humanitarian and ecological projects, experienced in business processes and supplying the world's most original boutiques with unique products, he provides the structural integrety, web support and business plan for the project.
 

We met our tailors through WWB where we went specifically seekng to engage microcredit program participants in our project.

The benefits to the tailors are many, both long and short term including:

- They are currently paid for each piece at 30% above the market rate, they are also each paid bonuses equivalent to seven pieces after every six successfully completed orders.

- They have been trained for over six weeks on European and USA qualty and finishing standards by Elodie (herlself an experienced tailor) and on the execution of our very unique cuts and designs.

- After one year of succesfull participation in the project they will become a twenty percent shareholder and be paid from profits in addition to the by-piece payment. They are encouraged to subcontract other tailors from inside the microcredit cooperative to meet demand when it exceeds their production capacity.

- Our goal is that after two years of successfull participation in the program the tailors will hold the majority stake in the project and our envolvement will diminish to the point that we are merely paid a salary for marketing and order processing until they can take over that function themselves.

 

Our Fabric is supplied by an Ashanti cloth seller in downtown Accra who sells the best 100% cotton printed, tie-died and batiked cloth in West Africa. Virtually all of our cloths are produced wholly in Ghana using locally designed motifs. These range from tie-dies to bazan waxcloth prints. Most every fabric we use has a subtle under-pattern only visible in indirect light and a beautiful main pattern the whole world can see. When we first began to explore the fabric world in Ghana we were astounded by the variety of beautiful cloths and prints available, often with motifs that seemed to have a strongly asian influence.

 

To find out about ordering any of these products click HERE to email me at journeyman@gorustic.com. I can ship to ANYWHERE in the world.