Developing Fashion/Textile Design Education in Dar es Salaam

Interviews conducted during May 2007 and at a subsequent workshop on 16th January 2008 confirm that employment opportunities in textile design tend to be limited to the small scale entrepreneurs taking on trainees or staff or to become self employed.

Self-employment appears to be the most immediate form of business operation in the fashion/textile design business. The local entrepreneurs interviewed in the study were involved in design through manufacture to retail. To help the entrepreneurs maximise their opportunities, there are short courses in business development, management, marketing and craft skills and links with organisations such as CTI and TraidCraft (through which they have gained information such as colour trends but this is sporadic).

At a workshop on January 16th 2008, representatives from handcraft and small-scale organisations (eg ADAT, MIKONO, Kwanza Collection, AMKA) raised a number of issues that, in their experiences, have prevented them from becoming attractive to an international market:
 Lack of consistent quality in the raw materials (such as yarns, dyes and chemicals) used to make the products with, suggesting that the Government ought to lobby the raw material manufacturers to produce to a certain quality or to set up factories of their own: the yarns do not produce fabric to the required standards of the international market and the pigment dyes often fade in the wash.
 Need for adequate preparation for exhibiting at the large international shows
 Lack of access to current standards of technology
 The second hand clothing market has an impact on the local designers and needs some form of intervention from the government.

There are restricted employment prospects in textile design in the industrial sector (mainly in the Export Processing Zone). The companies are allowed to employ a certain number of people from outside of Tanzania; these invariably include the designers. Reasons for not employing local designers include:
 Local designers had received no formal industrial sewing techniques or design training so large companies had no confidence in employing them in the design function
 The large factories train local employees as operators but not design.
 The design departments often used computer-aided design, a tool not found in the small-scale sector or short-term courses or training centres.
 Retail buyers ordered staple items (such as bed sheets or uniforms), not fashion (trend led) from large industrial companies so designs requirements were for amendments rather than brand new designs.