Fashion Designer: Guenet ‘Gigi’ Fresenbet Azmach likes to combine art with fashion. Each dress is a masterpiece!

After a lifetime of interest in the arts, education in fine arts, graphic design and fashion design in the United States with 12 years of industrial experience in the fashion world of the US, Gigi came back to her native land Ethiopia to pursue her goals & dreams as well as to make a difference by sharing her skills and talent with her people.

Contributes her share to the safety of the environment by creating High end fabrics made by hand for her Couture collections utilizing local natural cotton yarns, organic hand spun Ethiopian cotton fibers like raw silk and Jute made with no electric power/energy and no Chemical so that she contribute her fair share in conserving energy and to the safety of the Environment.

GIGI Ethiopia is a fashion design company which distinguishes itself by merging culture and art with high-quality fashion. GIGI Ethiopia was established in 1999. The company has 42 permanent Workers, 19 temporary and over 100 subcontractors. It has two separate divisions; Gigi Haute Couture,(Gigi HC) Fashion wear for special occasions, and bridals using traditionally hand loomed fabrics; and Made of Africa, (MOFA) an accessory and home decorating line which turns traditional utilitarian crafts into designer home item sand handmade furniture. It exports within Africa, to the US, Europe and the Middle East.

Each decade brings recognition of some sort. In the year 2000, Gigi was selected among the top 16 Africa’s new millennium designers by a South African TV Channel, ‘M-Net’s Africa Designs’, African Designers Competition produced by Jan Malan and judges were some of the big names in the Fashion world.

This year she Guenet was one of the 10 finalists in the EMPRETEC Women in Business Awards 2010. In April 2010, though she was not selected as one of the top three she is honored for the recognition as a finalist, Gigi was invited and participated in a conference, given a certificate at the ceremony, and a daylong work shop organized by UNCTAD’s EMPRETEC and the International Trade Centre (ITC) held in Geneva, Switzerland was very helpful for her future expansion and mission.

The future project includes an extension of Made of Africa and will be named FAM-VIDDAC after her late parents. Construction for the project is underway and established at their birth place in the southern region of Ethiopia particularly in Butajira town.

(FAMVIDDAC) –Fresenbet Aberash Memorial Village for the Development of Design Arts and Craft.

Gigi would like to extend her gratitude to all the support she received from UNCTAD’s EMPRETEC as well as ITC for providing her proper business trainings in order to improve and help her expand her business. Local Companies like MIDROC, Ethiopian Air Lines and the Sheraton Addis continue to support her goals and mission.

Finally her greatest thanks go to GOD for giving her a gift and talent, and courage and undying persistence to be better and for the countless people and her staff that are by her side thru thick and thin.