~ ALPHASDI CARAVAN TO STOP IN CASA~

[HOUDA-K]

30/06/05

By Houda Filali-Ansary

Moroccan-Nigerien Fashion guru Seidnaly Sidhamed will launch his 2005 caravan from Casablanca. The event, organized under the theme “cultural mixing,” will take place on Sept 14-18 at the Sacré Coeur cathedral and the Arab League park.



"The main purpose of this caravan is to give a good image of the African continent, an image that brings out the positive aspects of Africa, not war, AIDS or conflicts,” said fashion designer Seidnaly Sidhamed in an interview with the French language daily Le Matin du Sahara et du Maghreb.

This declaration came little after the announcement that the 2005 edition of the “Alphadi” African fashion caravan will start in Morocco's economic capital.

The caravan will later leave Morocco for Lybia, Cameroun and Niger where the International Festival of African Fashion (FIMA) is scheduled to take place in December.

The Casablanca event will consist in a fashion show aimed at presenting the work of Alphadi as well as that of a number of young African designers, among them five Moroccans.

Several folk music troupes such as ''Les Gnaoua du Maroc,'' (the Gnaoua of Morocco), ''Les tambours de Tombouktou'' (The drums of Timbuktu), “Nie-ré-ré'' or ''Dakar exhibition” are scheduled to take part in the event.



Two conferences are also scheduled to take place in Casablanca. They will deal with themes such as “culture and African arts” and “Cultural industry: what future for Africa?”

Money raised from this event will be used to fund AIDS-related operations.

Nicknamed the “prince of the desert” 48-year-old Seidnaly Sidhamed, also known as “Alphadi,” was born in Timbuktu (Mali) to a Moroccan mother and a Nigerien father. His love for beauty started at a very early age.

After passing his A-level exams, Sidhamed went to Paris to study tourism. This did not make him abandon fashion since he also attended evening classes at the Chardon Savard workshop.



He later returned to Niger to work at the Ministry of Tourism. In 1983, he changed his mind and decided to return to his original passion, launching his own haute couture line and organizing his first show at the local International Tourism Fair.

His works, marked by Songhaï, Peul, Bororo, Hausa and Tuareg influences, claim cultural mixing as a way of bridging gaps between African countries.

Since then, and despite strong criticism by local Islamists, Sidhamed has become one of the main figures of African catwalks, organizing shows throughout Africa and the rest of the world.

“I have been struggling for years for the Africa of fashion to stop being left behind, I want it to reach the same level as the [other continents], to shine and be exported,” said Sidahmed to Le Matin. He added: “I want African fashion to become a source of foreign currency, I want it to become a factor of job creation, of development and human development.”

This is why Sidhamed launched the International Festival of African Fashion (FIMA) in 1998, a project bringing together both African and Western fashion designers every two years, generating about 1,000 temporary jobs, and of which the caravan is part.