Interview with Wandia Gichuru
CO-FOUNDER & CEO, VIVO FASHION GROUP
Lives in: Nairobi
“I don’t come from a vogue background, so I are inclined to strategy issues purely from a enterprise perspective,” says Wandia Gichuru, founder and CEO of Vivo Trend Group, a Kenyan clothes producer and retailer.
“We attempt to deal with what the market desires. We work backwards – ranging from a value level we expect will work after which calculate whether or not we will produce the garment inside that value,” she explains.
Vivo at the moment operates twenty-nine shops throughout Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, and likewise owns the e-commerce market ShopZetu. Whereas the corporate goals to cater for ladies of all ages, Gichuru says the typical Vivo buyer is in her early forties.
She notes that over 90% of clothes obtainable in East Africa is imported, that means a lot of it’s not designed with native customers in thoughts. Vivo’s collections, against this, are created particularly for African girls – when it comes to dimension, match and elegance preferences. Gichuru says this entails “understanding what girls right here really feel good sporting – which components of their physique they’re glad to indicate off, which of them they aren’t – what colors they really feel good in”.
