By: Reuters | Abidjan (ivory Coast) |
June 5, 2021 10:30:41 pm
When 20-year-old Pathe Ouedraogo left his Burkina Faso village in 1969 looking for a greater life in neighbouring Ivory Coast, his dream was to return with a bicycle and a transistor radio to show he had made it. He was too skinny to work on a cocoa farm, so took the possibility to discover ways to make garments as a substitute – a call that propelled him to trend stardom. “The most accessible job at the time was to be an apprentice tailor,” stated Ouedraogo.
The man largely often known as Pathe’O is now celebrating a 50-year profession throughout which his signature informal shirts and attire in vibrant African prints and materials have graced the shoulders of celebrities and political luminaries together with Nelson Mandela. His massive break got here in 1994 when South African singer Miriam Makeba purchased 4 shirts from him as a present for the previous South African president. Mandela wore one and talked about Pathe’O’s identify when requested about its origins throughout a visit to Paris.
The publicity sparked a rush of orders and gross sales that emptied his store and propelled him to the forefront of the style scene. He met Mandela in 1998. “It was a meeting that changed my life,” Pathe’O informed Reuters. “In the village we would hear about Mandela and Apartheid and all the rest, I never thought I’d be a tailor, even less dress him”.
He marked his 5 a long time with a glitzy present and the launch of a brand new boutique in an upmarket Abidjan neighbourhood, whose partitions are adorned with photos of him with well-known folks together with Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote and Morocco’s King Mohamed VI, and presidents together with similar to Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Alpha Conde of Guinea sporting his shirts.
Pathe’O now sees his mission as doing extra to advertise African trend. “Africans themselves are still adverse to wearing what is made in Africa. That’s the real problem. This is the real fight today,” he stated.
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