Mwanampotevu Opportunities

Deadline: August 31, 2021

Applications are open for the IFM-Birimian Accelerator x Africa 2021. Birimian and the Institut Français de la Mode are supporting African emerging designers through a unique accelerator program for young creative brands based on the African continent or in the diaspora.

For the first edition, IFM-Birimian Accelerator x Africa will support 10 emerging designers selected for their talent, creativity, connection to the African heritage and capacity to upscale, with the expertise of a creative board composed of industry experts.

The selected designers and brands are offered personalized assistance, coaching advisory services for the development of their company by a dedicated team of professionals and industry experts, in the main areas of expertise required for a young creative company: brand identity, offer, distribution, production, image and communication, budget and financing.

Benefits
Formalization of the project’s fundamentals (which are often intuitive), an in-depth study of these fundamentals to put them into perspective and better anticipate future stages of development. Benefits that are tailored to the profiles and skills associated with the labels:

• The definition of the project and of its positioning, the structuring of collections, retail strategy, communication policy, financial monitoring.
• Collection building, distribution, communication, financial resources and teams. To set up operational working tools such as collection planning, general sales conditions, treasury framework, communication framework.
• To step back in order to gain perspective in relation to day-to-day pace and exchange with other designers/labels going through similar situations.
• Elevation of international standards and strengthening of technical and operational competences through luxury and fashion experts mentoring.
• Exposure to the international creative scene (supporting applications to prestigious and strategic prizes and collaboration opportunities).
• A potential lead-in to preparing business plans/financing arrangements.
• Potential investment from Birimian.

Eligibility

• Open to a label with African roots and heritage that has existed for at least 3 seasons.
• Have an annual sales figure of over USD $50,000 excluding tax and a positive result.
• An early reputation established with influencers and tangible activity on social media.
• If possible, having already established a team, tandem with a designer and another person in charge of sales, management.
• Creative talent and drive to move forward.

Application
The call for applications closes on August 31, 2021. Each application will be reviewed by a creative board of industry experts.

Click here to apply
For more information, visit IFM-Birimian Accelerator x Africa.