As the world continues to look to Africa for fashion inspiration, Botswana is set to become a fashion hub. From a state of near non-existence a few years ago, the fashion industry is now enjoying a substantial amount of growth and has received a lot of attention from local and international fashion lovers in recent years. A french media company, Upside Television has taken interest in documenting the fashion landscape of Botswana after seeing the GaTsh Fros’ 30 day Botswana Fashion Campaign which featured local fashion designers, models and other key industry players.
“Last year around September, we, GaTsh Fros, had a 30 day Botswana Fashion Campaign we called 30 Days of Pula Fashion where we wore clothes made in Botswana for 30 days and featured everything Botswana designers had to offer. We then decided to blog about 30 days of Botswana fashion as a celebration of Botswana’s independence,” said Tsholo Dikobe.
A few months later, in March, the stylish duo received an email from a French media company stating that they loved their campaign and wanted to come to Botswana to document their daily activities and fashion inspiration. “They came here to shoot a fashion documentary about us with some of the designers including Kaone Moremong and other designers we had featured in our campaign. They followed us for three days where we showed them Botswana’s art and craft places like the main mall, museum, the parliament, townships like Old Naledi and where we do trend forecasting and fashion news,” she said.
Furthermore, they took Jean luc Perreard who was the videographer and French presenter Audrey Chazal to their workshop in Mogoditshane where they design their Kobo-Mogagolwane line which was also the main aim of the documentary. “They wanted to know more about mogagolwane and why we decided to use this indigenous and traditional blanket as a fashion forward Botswana staple. We also took them 50km outside Gaborone, to Borotsi where we did a shoot in the wild and involved willing and excited locals who wore megagolwane so as to emphasise and understand the culture better. Last but not least we took them to the BBS flea market to show them where we buy our recycled cloths from dealers who practice safe environmental measures,” she added.