01082007Ozwald Boateng

Ozwald Boateng's Designing Vision for Africa
By Audrey Edwards
His Savile Row designs endow Jamie Foxx, Will Smith, and Keanu
Reeves with high style. Now Boateng hopes his business talents will
give sub-Saharan Africa both economic opportunity and
environmental relief.
What I remember most about traveling through Ghana many years
ago was how the people there treated time and distance. "How far is
it?" my traveling buddy and I would ask whenever a young
Ghanaian guide offered to take us to a particular destination. "Just up
the street a ways," was the standard reply, whether it was a quarter
mile or 10 miles. In the West, of course, the shortest distance between
two points is always a straight line, measurable and specific, so why
did our Ghanaian guides inevitably take us on meandering
crisscrossing routes, often leading away from the intended
destination before looping back? Because in much of African
thinking, getting from point A to point B is not about taking the
shortest route; it's about having a meaningful journey.
[Photo Break – Ghana]
This helps explain the phenomenon of menswear designer Ozwald
Boateng, a black Brit born in London but culturally rooted in an
African sensibility that reflects his Ghanaian heritage. At 39, Boateng
(bo-TANG) has emerged as the hottest designer on the British
menswear scene, having been the youngest tailor and the first black
to open a shop on London's legendary Savile Row 11 years ago. With
his hip and colorful, elegant, slim-fitting suits, worn by such U.S. Alisters as Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Will Smith, Robert
Redford, and Jamie Foxx, Boateng is now something of an A-lister
himself in the male fashion world. Remember the sleek, deep purple
pinstripe suit that Foxx wore when he accepted his Oscar in 2004? It
was from the Boateng Bespoke Couture collection. So were the
casually elegant suits that Foxx wore while dashing around in the
film Miami Vice.
Boateng's Bespoke line did £10 million in retail sales last year; he runs
the manufacturing end of the business as well, and has been creative
director of menswear for the Givenchy design house since 2003.
Earlier this year Boateng was awarded the Order of the British
Empire, an honor dating back to a time when recognition was
bestowed for chivalry. And over the summer he starred in an eightpart television documentary, House of Boateng, a half-hour weekly
series on Sundance Channel that followed him as he opens a flagship
store in New York City.
It would appear that Boateng has smoothly moved from point A to
point B in a straight line, having achieved success, wealth, and
recognition all before the watershed age of 40. Yet the African in him
knows that individual, commercial success is but one part of the
journey. The more meaningful part is using your success and
recognition to help the people in whom you are rooted by giving
back to a motherland sorely in need. Which is what brought Ozwald
Boateng to New York City one hot day last summer. Looking cool,
chic, and even chivalrous in white jeans and a stunning, impeccably
tailored lime-green shirt-one of his own Bespoke designs-Boateng sits
relaxed and regal in a suite at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel talking about his
latest venture, Human Energy, a tree-planting project in Africa being
undertaken in partnership with the Himalayan Institute*. Tree
planting? "It's very outside my world," the designer admits. Yet the
economic development potential of the project for his homeland has
him sounding as excited as a fledgling designer getting ready to
launch his first collection.
Africa's litany of woes and ravages is long and complex, and not lost
on the hundreds of thousands of first- and second-generation
Africans born and raised in Europe. "There are a lot of us in my
generation who realize we have some obligations to our roots," says
Boateng, explaining that among young, prosperous African
Europeans like himself, sending money "back home" has long been
"the cultural thing to do. We have an obligation to help others have a
better life." This is why he and two friends formed the Made in Africa
Trust (MIA), a for-profit venture for developing projects in Africa,
including Human Energy, that will help create wealth and economic
self-sufficiency.
Now enter the Biofuel Rural Development Initiative launched by the
Himalayan Institute in partnership with Roshini Biotech in southern
India in 2003. South India, like much of sub-Saharan Africa, is largely
poor, rural, and farm dependent, with millions of acres of land laid to
ruin by desertification, drought, and pestilence. The goal of the Rural
Development Initiative was not only to address the pressing needs of
these rural communities (farmers here had the highest suicide rates
in the country), but also to enable them to find lasting ways to
become self-sufficient. The solution lay in the pongamia tree.
Remarkably, this indigenous tree can grow on the most barren
ground, and is impervious to drought, with dark, green leaves that
retain moisture in even the most intense heat. It is also insectresistant and repellent to grazing livestock. The best part of the tree,
however, are the seeds, which contain an oil that is easily processed
into environmentally safe biofuel. Not only is the seed a source of
fuel for diesel engines and the generators that are the main source of
electricity in rural areas, but once the oil has been extracted, the
seedcake is a source of biogas, organic fertilizer, and cattle feed. As
the spectacular success of the South Indian project has shown, the
income-generating and life-sustaining potential to be derived from
planting pongamia trees in underdeveloped countries could prove
revolutionary.
But can this project be successfully transplanted to the African
continent? Boateng is betting that it can, though when one of his MIA
partners, Chris Cleverly, a former London barrister with roots in
Sierra Leone, first approached him about teaming with the
Himalayan Institute to develop a pongamia tree project in Ghana and
Uganda similar to the one in India, Boateng just laughed. "I said,
‘What are you talking about? Trees that will create biofuels?' It may
sound funny now, but this is the future, you know."
The beauty of farming pongamia trees in poorer countries, says
Boateng, is the diversity of economic opportunity that such an
undertaking provides. "We're talking about the creation of jobs,
doing something environmentally safe, and planting trees that are
actually good for the land." Boateng is also talking about the potential
for harvesting a wealth-creating product that could finally liberate
Africa from its debilitating dependency on foreign aid. "I'm sure this
is possible," he says. "My partners and I want to be a part of creating
the right types of development in Africa that really benefit the
people."
This makes Boateng and Made in Africa ideal partners for the
Himalayan Institute, says Ishan Tigunait, the director of the
Institute's Global Humanitarian Initiative. "The pongamia project has
been instrumental in empowering impoverished villagers in India
and it is well on its way to doing the same thing in Africa," Tigunait
points out. Not only is Boateng's Made in Africa Trust helping to
finance tree planting projects in Ghana and Uganda, where one of
Boateng's two partners, Hassan Kimbugwe, is a prince, but the clout
and influence of these prominent African Europeans has been
indispensable to gaining access in Africa. "Ozwald brought us to
people at the highest levels of government and to people in the
villages, and that gave us a solid understanding of what's really
going on. Seeing the full range of society gave us insight into Africa
the way it really is, which allowed us to see the great potential in the
people and in the land, " Tigunait explains. "Ozwald introduced us to
ministers in the capital, to the king of the Ashanti Kingdom, and to
the villagers living under him. We saw the full spectrum of the
society, which allowed us to find ways of empowering grassroots
communities to create lasting change." And Boateng notes that in
Uganda, where one of his partners has royal connections, the
government provided 10,000 acres to Human Energy for the
pongamia tree-planting project.
Boateng acknowledges that his celebrity in not just Ghana, but all
across Africa, matters in doing business on the world's largest
continent. "I'm viewed as one of the few who's achieved in an area
where traditionally someone with my cultural background wouldn't
succeed," he says. "So there's respect in that. One of the big things in
Africa is to be heard." But the biggest thing is bringing development
projects to the continent that will work, Boateng argues. "I
understand the issues in Africa," he says. "And if you tell people [on
the ground] to do something that's different, you've got to
demonstrate to them that doing it differently works. So the key here
is really about making sure that my first initiative succeeds, and then
I will be allowed to do more. I know it won't be a walk in the park.
Sometimes we're going to get it wrong. Sometimes we're going to get
it right. But the point is to try. It's all in the action."
This has been the key to Boateng's own success in the menswear
business. "When I first started, my determination was my big asset. It
was like pulling massive boulders up hills. I understand now that it
didn't have to be done that way. It's really about understanding that
the beauty you create in designing clothes has its own flow, and out
of that flow opportunities will come, if it's meant to be. What's
interesting is that if something is meant to be, it will happen-almost
in abundance." Boateng believes the opportunity he now has in
Africa with the pongamia project was meant to be. "The intention is
true, the heart is there, the will is there," he says of the sentiment he
and his partners are bringing to the undertaking.
All of the above were abundantly present, too, when Boateng
switched from studying computer technology to pursuing fashion
design more than 20 years ago. He took on his first tailoring job at
age 16-helping a girlfriend create a few men's outfits for a fashion
show she put together-and discovered he loved design and had a
knack for it. Boateng's mother is an accomplished seamstress so his
innate fashion sense no doubt came with the genes. By his midtwenties Boateng had opened his own shop near tweedy Savile Row,
and was soon injecting the British button-down approach to men's
tailoring with vibrant color, lush fabrics, form-fitting designs, and a
look that ushered in hip Brit.
Boateng is now hoping to export that look to America. "I'm ready to
take the next step to making the business a big business," he says of
expanding his menswear line to the U.S. market. "I think I've
definitely laid the foundation-of the integrity of the work, the design,
the creativity. It's always been my dream to mix fashion and wealth.
And in America you have a lot of people succeeding at very young
ages."
This is the very crowd he is going after: style-minded, deep-pocketed
young entertainment moguls, movie stars, athletes. House of Boateng,
the reality television show he starred in for Sundance Channel, was
pivotal in heightening his recognition factor among American
consumers, not just the jet-setting international elite. "The show did
exceptionally well," Boateng says of its eight-week run. With his tall,
lean good looks, characteristic of the Ashanti people of central Ghana
from whose line he descends, Boateng seems a natural star. As Robert
Verdi, a stylist and host of Fashion Police on the Style Network (and
owner of seven Boateng suits), once said of Boateng's appeal: "He's
suave without being slick, handsome without being intimidating, and
hip without being desperate."
The show portrayed a designer who is also a consummate
businessman. Whether meeting with lawyers on how to handle a
franchise deal in which he got stiffed, or leading his staff in a strategy
session before an American store opening, Boateng comes across as
cool under fire and always in control. Boateng, however, hopes that
the show will ultimately be an inspiration for others. "My approach
to what I do is to keep it real," he says. "I design these great
collections, have a nice car, a family, but when I communicate, I do it
in a way that I hope people will feel it's possible to for them to
achieve, too. It's important for me to succeed at that level." To be a
good role model, Americans might say. This is just one more way for
Ozwald Boateng to make the journey meaningful.
Audrey Edwards is a contributing writer to Essence magazine and owner of
a real estate business in Brooklyn, New York.