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Paris-based designer Atal jumps onto face masks
Stella Atal makes face masks in Paris. Photo by Edgar R. Batte
As covering up with face masks becomes the ‘new normal,’ some fashion designers are making a killing from it.
Stella Atal, a fashion designer, has awakened many memorable pieces on the runway. The thirty-six-year old has showcased her work in international fashion capitals of New York and Paris.
She is a painter too. Her uniqueness is in the colours and thought of creating distinctive pieces. The contemporary designer combines traditional and western materials to create outfits that respond to modern lifestyles.
Although the rapidly spreading coronavirus pandemic has put a huge strain on businesses, it has opened some unique opportunities for Atal. She has been contracted to make the latest coveted product: Face masks.
These will be distributed by municipalities within communities to protect as a safety precaution against contracting coronavirus.
Under Atal Stella Fashion House, she makes 200 face masks from pure cotton and 120 threads tight weekly. These are sold in bulk to municipalities in Paris. It earns her approximately 600 euros (about Shs2.5m) in a week, and approximately Shs10m if supply and payment is on a consistent trajectory.
She has a sewing machine on which she works. Her daughters are happy to occasionally join in to help her. Each mask averagely goes for £3 (about Shs14,000). As the French government encourages cottage enterprises, her tax obligation has dropped from 22 per cent to 5.5 per cent.
The locally made masks are distributed among residents who are economically disadvantaged. These get two masks from the government.
From a tender age, Atal was to become a fashion designer. Her mother was one of her first mentors. She got on her feet with a start-up capital of Shs500,000 which she earned as an interior designer.
“I would make sure that for each home I worked on, I left my artwork somewhere. I showed some of my artworks to the owner of Banana Boat Art shops and she asked me to start supplying her. Every week, she would order for artwork,” she told this reporter in interview in 2014.
She has always set her eyes on big ambitions. In 2016, an opportunity presented itself to move to France. She grabbed it. To find a footing in a globally competitive sphere, she worked hard at positioning her unique design style.
Atal, a graduate of Fine Art from Makerere University, is also a fashion and art teacher in Paris through which she interacts with many people. That is how she was able to get into the network of municipality leaders and be trusted to make masks for the parts of the European country.
During normalcy, the Ugandan fashion designer is another competitor in France’s commercially viable industry. According to its government, the direct turnover of the fashion industry stands at €33b (about Shs154b).
It has created over one million jobs, nationals and foreigners. Atal’s designs have earned her anything between 400 Euros (Shs1.6m) and 70 Euros (Shs292,000), per week from face masks, depending on materials used and client.
Her biggest earning so far is $7,000 (Shs27m) from a bark cloth art collection bought by an American art collector. Undecided clients are part of her clients. Some will not pay for commissioned clothes, accounting for losses.
The designer’s clientele ranges from celebrities to discrete individuals who appreciate her novelty in fusing western and African design craft. She uses bark cloth and leather on some designs, an avenue for promoting traditional material and Ugandan culture. She remains dynamic and takes nothing for granted.
“This pandemic teaches us that we cannot predict tomorrow. It is sometimes not about our passions but the demands in the market. I had fashion shows coming up and I was already working on collections. Plus, four days before lockdown, I was meant to travel for work,” she recollects.
Slowly, she came to terms with the change in business demands and if she wanted money, she had to adjust to pick interest and adapt.
“I have business that earns me money during this time. At the moment, my passion for glamour outfits is being out seasoned because I don’t know when next I will be able to sell clothes. All that matters right now is to make as many masks as possible to first save lives,” she adds.
