Kenyan Entrepreneur Champions Authentic African Textiles

Gladys Wanjiku Macharia, founder of Siafu Home states: “There’s a lot of cliches when it comes to referencing African textiles”. She explains, “I think when you look at the landscape of Kenya, it’s very reminiscent to the movement between Savannah Tropical and just trying to embody all those beautiful nuances that come out of our country.”

Macharia speaks about how the history of trade has influenced Kenyan style, “Our history stems back to the trade routes and seculars bringing in different textiles that were used for trade. And that was really the first movement towards Kenyans being able to buy fabrics that came into Kenya through trade.”

She adds, “It’s a culmination of pulling inspiration from different paths and different textile environments in order for us to engineer something that’s new and different.”

A challenge facing Macharia was finding Kenyan-made textiles. So, she decided to design her own, “One of our biggest challenges when designing products locally is finding unique textiles that stand out and that are made in Kenya. So Siafu was really an opportunity, a gap in the market where I started to create and design textiles that would allow each brand to have a unique story to its collection.”

Looking ahead, Macharia discusses her hopes for Siafu, “What I hope to do through Siafu is to […] be able to show a positive story, and also for people to be inspired to take up old traditional artisanry work because we live in a world where things will soon be forgotten. And I hope to keep this alive.”