After its establishment in 2015, the Rwanda Fashion Models Union officially launched on Sunday, March 26, with 300 models and 23 modelling agencies to support the development of local fashion designers and models.

The union was registered by the Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) in 2022.

As noted, the union will foster an environment that enables African and Rwandan creatives to showcase their creativity, arrange for collaboration, access available market opportunities, incubate and facilitate training for young talent as well as facilitate impact driven conversations with key stakeholders.

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During Sunday’s launch, the Secretary General of RFMU, Didier Hubert Hakizimana, said that the government helped the fashion sector to have a union to help prop up local designers and models.

"Fashion models are the government’s brand ambassadors and we have had 20 models represent the country so well on international fashion shows. The models who attend international runways showcase our culture and values as Rwandans to a diverse crowd at runways,” Didier told The New Times.

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"We plan on sending models to international agencies every year to promote the models and the industry in Rwanda.”

They also intend to, in the short-term, hire roughly 1,000 models by 2024.

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Didier said the union is also eyeing some major projects, in the near future, including organizing or hosting new events – the Gorilla Fashion Week and the Gakondo Art Fashion Festival – and helping turn talent into viable business as well as establishing a modeling school.

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The converting talents into business project will be implemented in collaboration with designers from the Integrated Polytechnic Regional College (IPRC) Kigali and is set to employ 20 models.

Fashion houses that showcased their collections during the launch include Vovo Vogue, Kwesa Collections, La Reina Couture, Gallery Apparel Design, Independent, Anto Styles, RP IPRC Kigali, Kid Reany, Hendero and Lii Collections.