International Festival of Woven Pagne in Benin: A project led by Lolo Andoche and ADTL

The first edition of the Festival de Pagne Tissé (FIPAT) is scheduled to take place from 17 at 21 November 2021. This is during a press conference organized on Tuesday 17 last August in the Madiba room 1 of the Golden Tulip Le Diplomate hotel in Cotonou that the announcement was made by the Local Textile Development Association (ADTL) and the Lolo Andoche brand.

Give much more visibility to the national loincloth, this is the raison d'être of FIPAT. For Charlemagne Amoussou, general delegate of the festival and promoter of the Lolo Andoche brand "This festival will make the Beninese woven loincloth better known, which is already exportable, but lacks volume ». This festival, he will say, has the primary objective of promoting and enhancing the Beninese loincloth locally and internationally.. Because “the development of a country cannot be done without grassroots development. This is what led to the launch of FIPAT”.  According to him, it is a project that will bring together weavers who will be required to provide quality work in order to further promote the local fabric and allow Beninese to have access to it at a reasonable price..

Several countries including Burkina-Faso, Niger, the Ghana, Cameroon and many others will be represented during this festival. Also, he specifies, a team of experts will be deployed to support the weavers in the design of quality fabrics and the grammage..

Welcome Badou, director of the festival abounds in the same direction while indicating that the FIPAT is an opportunity to show that Benin also has potential to sell. "Each country has a specificity of the loincloth and many will come to highlight it", he mentioned. Fashion shows, expo sale, cultural visit, training workshop for weavers are all activities planned to furnish this first edition of the festival. “The Olympia canal site is reserved for the sales exhibition where we hope for more 1200 visitors. There will be a haute couture show at Golden Tulip which also brings together around twenty fashion designers without forgetting cultural visits in order to sell the Benin destination.

Prudence Hessou, deputy delegate of FIPAT invited all the actors concerned to a frank and fruitful collaboration in order to highlight Benin's potential in terms of woven loincloth.

 Yvon ALITONOU