This year, Nisha Kanabar, founder and CEO of Industrie Africa, is celebrating the brand’s fifth year in business in a unique way. Rather than pomp and circumstance, Kanabar is launching a luxury concept store in Zanzibar, Society of Luxury Artisanship, and a limited-edition collection by Sarah Diouf’s Tongoro. The store is located exclusively on a new private island resort on Zanzibar’s Bawe Island.
In her own words, the founder has been “staying the course,” while staying dedicated to pouring into African designers and their businesses since 2018. By 2020, Industrie Africa became a multi-brand e-commerce platform. The platform has been carving out a nonlinear lane for itself, and along the way, Kanabar and her team have remained focused on building an ecosystem of shoppable designers from the continent, including Andrea Iyamah, Rendoll, and Onalaja.
“Five years in, what I feel most is clarity. I believe more deeply in the purpose of this work and its potential to shift narratives,” Kanabar shared. Hailing from Tanzania, Nisha grew up enamored with clothes and playing dress up so much so that it informs the work she does today with Industrie Africa. No roadmap was set for her despite her schooling and tutelage at Parsons School of Design, where she graduated from in 2013. Her background spans fruitful years in New York, including a stint at Vogue, which was followed by a relocation to Dubai for a role at the now-shuttered Style.com. In 2016, Nisha, a fourth-generation Tanzanian returned to Tanzania. Upon relocating, she picked up on the fact that there was no one-stop shop for brands on the continent. A digital showroom, which launched in 2018, was the first iteration of what would later become Industrie Africa.
Today, 80% of their customer base is located in the United States, while a growing audience is constantly expanding across Europe, South Africa, and beyond. 49 brands with origins from Nigeria, Ghana, Mozambique, Mali, Burundi, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa, Eswatini, Senegal, and Côte d’Ivoire are currently on the platform. “Industrie Africa was built on the belief that fashion from our continent deserves the same investment, visibility, and consideration as any established luxury market,” Kanabar said.
Nisha candidly expresses that due to her conviction, which is hard-earned, built on consistency and resilience, the current iteration of the e-commerce marketplace is thriving. There is no traditional business model she followed, which is why Kanabar is particularly proud of the boundlessness attached to Industrie Africa. To the founder, Industrie Africa is a platform with both substance and soul. She adds that the work to platform and assist with the growth of brands “still feels urgent and worth doing.”
In this chapter, the launch of a luxury concept store further expounds upon Nisha’s initial mission to honor and uplift African creativity–Zanzibar is also her home country. “The decision to launch in Zanzibar wasn’t driven by customer data. It landed because it was story-first, led by opportunity and intuition,” Nisha explains. She expressed that the Bawe Island team approached Industrie Africa to partner on a retail-specific project for their new property. “It immediately felt like a good fit. [Zanzibar] is experiencing a surge in tourism, yet remains vastly underrepresented in global fashion and design conversations.”
Bawe Island was willing to take a risk on a business model that wasn’t formulaic. On the retail expansion, Kanabar mentions that the architecture, the island’s ecology, and the privacy of the space gave her and her team an inspiring canvas to work with. “It allowed us to think about the space more strategically and narratively, embedded within the guest experience,” she expressed.
Industrie Africa is also entering the B2B market with Select, a new retail consultancy for the luxury hospitality industry. The debut of SoLA, their concept store, will blend African designers with select international labels. “Zanzibar is a layered, rich, and nuanced destination,” said Kanabar. This was the foundation for SoLA and Select.
Select was designed to integrate Africa’s creative ecosystem into luxury hospitality environments across the continent, according to Kanabar. “I like to think of it as a stronger anchoring of our core values through contextual, physical touchpoints. We’ve always treated retail as a storytelling tool—beyond just a sales channel,” she noted. Nisha is hopeful that Select will allow people to further experience Africa’s creative industry in a more embodied way: through storytelling and restoring what she calls “the lost art of consumer intimacy.” Kanabar says the two can, and should, coexist.
Nisha says the goal for the first Select designer collaboration was to truly reflect the spirit of SoLA. “The silhouettes and prints in this capsule speak to the rhythm of Zanzibar, reimagined through Tongoro’s visual language,” she added. Future capsules are set to reflect a different dialogue between place and designer–this is a unique promise Select will offer to partner properties in the future.
The Beyoncé-approved brand Tongoro is the first launch at SoLA in Zanzibar. Many of the brand’s creations fall under fanciful resort wear or perhaps pieces you can save for all types of occasions. Back in 2021, Tonogoro was one of Industrie Africa’s first collaborations. Designed by Sarah Diouf, the resort wear capsule is currently available online. The capsule is made up of an elevated zebra print playsuit, a luxe jumpsuit in grey and orange, and assorted maxi dresses ideal for vacationing. Accompanying Tongoro’s celebratory collection, Industrie Africa has also launched “The Exclusives Shop,” featuring made-to-order pieces from its designer base, which includes brands like Lisa Folawiyo, Hertunba, and more, currently available globally.