The balance that puts Stoned Cherrie on top

Nkhensani Nkosi is the golden girl of SA's couture market but she's paid her dues behind the flash and dazzle. The creative director and brand manager of Stoned Cherrie has built her credibility with suppliers and manufacturers, retailers and financiers, into a designer brand that's shaping up beautifully for international success, despite the economic downturn.

International interest

She launched her latest collection at last month's prestigious New York Fashion Week, amid the usual galactic household names — Gucci, Versace and Armani. Sudanese supermodel Alek Wek led her parade of Afro-chic outfits along the runway and the Big Apple's fashionistas went gaga.

More importantly, says Nkosi, back at her designer base in Johannesburg's downtown Doornfontein, several US retailers were equally impressed.

“I wasn't looking to get Stoned Cherrie into upmarket American stores ... right away,” she says. “I wasn't expecting big orders from department stores, especially in the present economic climate. My priority is to define exactly what our potential American market can be, and then develop our plans for that clientele. In that, I was very successful.”

Four African labels were invited to the New York event: Mali's Xuly Bet, Nigeria's Tiffany Amber and Momo joined Stoned Cherrie at the Bryant Park venue. While the marquees were packed with film and TV stars, Nkosi's VIP invites were all retail executives looking for a fresh, exotic edge to lift the spirits of their customers across the US.

US collaboration

“I gained valuable input,” she says. “I invited one or two company CEOs and production chiefs in the fashion industry who could launch Stoned Cherrie into the US market as a viable business rather than an interesting novelty from Africa. They attended the show with collaboration much in mind. One company is known for its fair trade projects in SA, and it would make a sensible tie-up.”

Nkosi won't say who it is — not yet — but follow-up discussions have begun. “These things take time,” she shrugs. “It'll take another trip or two to New York to get into the details. It is significant, though — because it was this company's top executives who attended the Stoned Cherrie show rather than its buyers.”

Timing is everything

The collection was carefully in tune with a US consumer market celebrating it's first African American president. Says Nkosi: “My aim is to establish a niche market in the city ... and grow our credibility across the States with quality South African design, backed by the level of workmanship you'd expect from a leading international fashion brand. I want to establish my product in New York in the same way we began in Johannesburg eight years ago.”

Step one, back in 2001, was an upmarket boutique in Rosebank where Johannesburg's social elite came to be styled for corporate functions and red-carpet showbiz events. Wedding gowns and prom dresses combined fine imported materials with traditional fabrics and beading in a “look” that encompassed cultural cred and razor-sharp street culture. Her Stoned Cherrie T-shirts revived '50s club-land swagger by sporting historic covers of Drum magazine.

Broadening horizons

Nkosi relied on her own instinct to keep each season's trends on track with the independence and earning potential of this decade's urban woman. By 2004, she was extending her brand into a diffusion clothing line (ready to wear) in selected Woolworths stores in key centres across SA. By 2007 she had launched the Stoned Cherrie eyewear range, which now carries the brand identity to 450 outlets across Africa — selling in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Malawi and Zambia as well as in optometrists in SA.

This expansion is propelled by SA's growing reputation in fashion circles as an international player. “SA is perceived as a major brand on our continent,” says Nkosi, “and that goes hand in glove with Stoned Cherrie's own brand equity. I'm excited by the success of our eyewear in Africa, where we're racked alongside competing brands like Gucci and Prada and Armani.”

"Not enough ... to make fabulous clothes"

The brand logo is flying off the shelves on accessories, but clothing design is more likely to become the flagship for African fashion into a world of lowered consumer spending. It's an exotic edge among the latest spartan fashion lines. “African designers have an advantage right now,” says Nkosi, “but it's not enough just to make fabulous clothes. Businesses are closing every month, here and in New York, and it's the small traders that disappear first. When you have limited resources you must step carefully in your planning and operations.”

She's sized up the American market and her way into it. “There's a quintessential ‘Stoned Cherrie woman' in America,” she says. “She's shopping more and more online and she wants something a bit different, a new label with the quality and ideas that will become a buying habit. She's not the woman who pops into the H&M store each month looking for something she might fancy. That's too random to use as a basis for developing any sort of retail brand.”

Star exposure

Celebrity exposure helps, of course, and the Stoned Cherrie boutique in Rosebank is a popular destination for visiting American stars. Tennis icons the Williams sisters have been there and bought the T-shirts; so have soul music divas India.Arie and Angie Stone. “I get lightheaded about seeing Venus and Serena playing in a televised tournament, watched by their mother, Oracene, in one of our T-shirts,” Nkosi said in 2004, revelling in the buzz that's the currency of her trade.

She's no stranger to that media buzz herself. She left Wits University with a psychology degree and won a Vita award for best actress for her professional stage debut in Sophiatown — The Musical. Hooked up by then with TV's hottest young presenter, Zam Nkosi, they launched a popular chat show, Mojo. In 2004 Newsweek magazine compared her to a young Oprah Winfrey — “not just as an innovative fashion designer but as a leader of an emerging generation of black women who are entrepreneurial, optimistic and assertive”.

Nkosi likened herself at the time more to Richard Branson. “We're both creative activists,” she commented. “He uses airlines and record companies; I'm using the clothing industry and the arts. We relate closely to our customers and our brands are driven by their urban energy.”

On-the-job training

She's written no business exams, she hasn't had time. With two young daughters and a TV producer husband, Nkosi's work diary is stretched like the skin of a drum.

“People ask me, did you go to business school?” she grins. “Of course I did — the Stoned Cherrie school of hard knocks. I have no regrets; I'm getting a superb education. One reason we are where we are is through our association with Woolworths. I've also worked closely with an expert in the commercial side of the business for the past four years. The first time she came in, she asked ‘What's your trading density? What's your turnover per square metre in the stores?' I had no idea what she meant.” Today, she knows. Her commercial agenda is honed into getting the maximum bang for every buck she spends, just as her customers are.

Gearing for expansion

Stoned Cherrie's production process is gearing up for expansion via tough negotiations with suppliers and tightening credit lines with clients. She's approaching the Department of Trade and Industry to support her export initiative this year at international trade shows. And meanwhile, the government's Umsobomvu Youth Fund for business development has approved the advance she needs to expand the Stoned Cherrie stores to major malls across the country.

Nkosi, however, is holding fire — monitoring consumer patterns before she pushes ahead. “We're all thinking twice nowadays before we invest — whether it's in more stores or new outfits,” she says. “Am I going to get enough wear out of this? Is it worth the money? Stoned Cherrie was always about creating what people want in their lifestyle, not their temporary whims. It took us a few years to learn that central truth about the fashion business: customers vote with their budgets, here and everywhere else.”

Strutting SSAFW

She aims to dazzle yet again with a new summer collection on Saturday evening, when Stoned Cherrie tops Sanlam South African Fashion Week at Newtown's Turbine Hall. It's a statement she annually makes in a multimedia spectacle of music, dance, lights and style that defines her vision of African couture.

“Of course, fashion has to be fun and a media profile is an asset in your marketing budget, but it's all driven by sales,” Nkosi warns. “Our industry must focus more on building entrepreneurs and grounding their creativity in a sound business discipline. The only impact that counts is on the bottom line.

“Retail at home and abroad is the true measure of success.”

Source: Business Day

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