Nzika Wear dreams of a cultural home

Blantyre-based fashion designer Nzika Wear has said there is more in their pot to the tourism industry and coming shortly will be a cultural home to be situated in the capital city.

Director of Nzika Wear Mwai Namaona disclosed this in an exclusive interview when discussing the future of the design company.

Namaona said his office has been waiting for the time when they can operate as a company and with a stable financial muscle. He said there have been plans to diversify and the new plan has incorporated Nzika Wear Fashion Festival and Nzika Cultural Village as first projects to come soon.

“Nzika Wear festival will be the first. The second is the Nzika cultural home. This will be a cultural home that will incorporate various activities, but the main ones will be fashion and culture,” he said.

While saying they will unveil the full plan in a few months’ time, Namaona said they already identified a place in Lilongwe where the home will be located. He added that they are also consulting with various people to ensure the place contributes largely to the preservation of culture and growth of fashion design.

“We are not in a hurry, but we are making progress. There is a big market for fashion design and we can develop the long-time dreamt Malawi fashion industry if we come up with new initiatives. I hope the corporate world and government will recognise our efforts and support us financially,” he said.

Namaona said fashion design and culture contribute huge sums of money to the economy of many countries.

“This can happen in Malawi if the tourism sector and the corporate world join the fashionistas to promote their products for exports. The cultural home will attract tourists and they will be introduced to traditional designs to be displayed at the fashion shop at the cultural home,” he said.

Nzika Wear joined the fashion industry in 2005 and over the years, it has diversified to decorations and African fine arts.