The young designer who took the big jump from employee to entrepreneur said the textile industry has failed to flourish over the past decade mainly because the Chinese formula of mass production at ridiculously lower prices has seen them flood South Africa’s clothing industry.
“Most chains stores import their clothing, which makes it very hard for young aspiring designers to penetrate this market. Over the past decade, we have seen a loss of around 50 000 jobs in the clothing manufacturing industry mainly because of this reason,” she said.
Khosa together with business partner, Tamsyn McDonald, have created a corporate wear range under their company T&X Styles and are looking for retail space that is accessible to the average person.
Although their intention is to target the man on the street, Khosa points out that because of the strict labour laws, they are forced to produce clothing that is high end due to the high cost of production, thus making it almost impossible to penetrate the lower to middle end market.
“This also makes investing in local talent an unaffordable practice. Institutions want to fund young designers, but will not fund another high end brand. They want lower to middle end, and it is a huge challenge for the local designer,” she said.
“There is general interest in what is happening locally, but we see this industry dying because our government is not doing anything about it and the unions play a major role in the killing of this industry.”
On a positive note, Khosa did acknowledge how simple it has become to start one’s own business with all the incubation centres that have been set up to assist young entrepreneurs in starting as well as getting funding.
“The development of the new Department of Small Businesses is doing a lot in trying to help young entrepreneurs and there is a huge focus on black female entrepreneurs. There are many doors available for us to knock on, one just needs to keep their ear on the ground,” she said.
