By Innocent Ndlovu 

Fashion designers and their businesses face an uncertain future amidst the increasing energy crisis.

The last day of South African Fashion Week AW '23 season in the previous year was interrupted by a power outage that delayed the event by more than an hour. Attendees, myself included, had to wander around the show, space waiting for backup power to kick in and systems to reboot before the designer showcases could resume. 

In South Africa, such disruptions have become a norm. Power cuts, which are locally referred to as load shedding, are reaching new levels as Eskom, the public utility, continues struggling to meet the demand for electricity. 

Implemented in early 2008, load-shedding was introduced as a strategy to protect the grid from collapsing and avoid a total countrywide blackout. A typical day can go through various stages that consist of anything between two-and-a-half and twelve-and-a-half hours of blackouts at varying intervals. The higher the stage, the more frequently one will experience power cuts. 

During these outages, businesses and retailers without alternative power supply are forced to temporarily shut down. This also means traffic lights and ATMs, amongst other services, stop working. For the fashion industry, designers continue to experience the biggest impact – one which threatens the survival of their fragile businesses. Factories too have been affected, with some shutting down or being acquired by other organisations. 

Mounting hurdles 

During this crisis, some of the biggest challenges faced by designers include production delays, quality control issues, supply chain disruptions, declining cash flows, and increased operating costs. Additionally, due to the inconsistency of load-shedding timetables, working hours are often reduced since power goes off for hours at a time – affecting productivity and ultimately sales and profits. 

This ongoing dilemma calls for designers to be adaptable with their working hours. “Our schedules have to be extremely flexible because of the different stages of load-shedding that are implemented regularly,” says Anissa Mpungwe, a womenswear designer who launched her brand, Loin Cloth & Ashes in 2008 and has spent the last two years rebranding it to Anissa Mpungwe Atelier. “Working 3 or 4 hours a day on production is not a sustainable way to operate and meet deadlines,” she adds. 

Anita Hlazo, a Cape Town-based designer behind the streetwear label Afrogrunge agrees with Mpungwe. “I’ve had to change my sleeping patterns to accommodate the load-shedding schedule and I find myself working at odd hours of the night,” says the creative who has dressed the likes of South African musician, Moonchild Sanelly. 

Financial losses and an exaggerated increase in labour costs are ongoing obstacles for Emelia Dorcas Mutombo of Emelia D, a young label known for its vibrant knitwear for men and women. The designer and her team often work overtime to make up for lost hours. “We work from 9am when there’s power, then electricity goes off from 2–4pm which means we lose two hours of work in the afternoon,” she explains.

Mutombo, who recently opened her first studio in Cape Town, pays her staff full wages regardless of the reduced amount of working hours and productivity due to outages. “I pay my employees for a day's work, but they don’t get to do a full day of work, so we end up falling behind and find ourselves working overtime just to reach our targets which have also decreased. I can’t cut their pay or tell them to go home and come back after two hours. It’s very difficult and complicated,” she admits. 

But these challenges are not exclusive to fashion designers. 

Fadzani from the Johannebsurg-based Exodus Factory, who works with brands like Hamethop and Thebe Magugu, uses both backup generators and solar energy but there are times when both of these are down during load-shedding. “The disruption causes low production efficiency,” she tells us. “There are things we can do with backup power but for others, we have to wait for electricity to come back.” 

Adapting to survive

Despite the tough conditions that designers are operating under and a gloomy tomorrow, with experts predicting that blackouts are most likely to continue into the unforeseeable future, the industry is finding ways to make it work. 

To meet her targets, Mpungwe works with multiple production partners instead of relying on one. This tactile strategy has been one of the key ways the brand has been able to maintain steady production levels and prepare for their brand’s relaunch this July. “Working well in advance more than usual has been another way for us to help manage expectations,” she declares. 

Hlazo, who sells her brand via an online store and through local retail partners, has struggled to meet orders. “My CMT and I are not able to produce the amount of stock we need,” she reveals. I’ve gone from stocking three times to once a month,” she explains. Her approach involves full transparency to her online customers about the extended delivery times caused by supply chain problems due to constant power cuts. A single order from her store can take up to a week to be processed before it can be shipped.  

As designers lead with their resilient attitude, they will also need to be open minded about experimenting with new business methods with a sense of creativity and agility. This is necessary under these circumstances, in addition to investing in alternative backup power solutions and diversifying manufacturers. “It’ s no longer financially viable to have singular solutions moving forward,” says Mpungwe.