Heinrich Klassen and Lorraine Shadeya are the founders of the German-Kenyan sustainable fashion label Mikono, which produces sustainable jackets, kimonos and T-shirts.
Why did you decide to produce sustainable fashion instead of fast fashion?
The love for Kenya, the respect for the work of our seamstresses and our desire to produce good working conditions and products of the highest quality motivate us to pass on as much as possible to our seamstresses.
The appreciation of all our colleagues does not stop at the salary, but is also expressed through reliability, organizational help, temporal and spatial flexibility for a fulfilling family life and support for digital skills. The most experienced members organize their own teams and are therefore responsible for the planning and the quality themselves.
How did you come up with the name “Mikono”? Does it stand for a special meaning?
“Mikono” means “hand” and also “arm” in Kiswahili. From the harvesting of the linen and cotton, to the printing, to our drivers, to our tailors and our customer service, we are all involved with hand and heart.
Which materials do you use for your your jackets, kimonos and T-shirts?
The kimonos and T-shirts are made of 100% cotton. The reversible jackets are made of 100% cotton on the colorfully printed kitenge and 100% linen on the plain black inside. The zippers on our jackets are made of metal and the cuffs are made of polyamide, so that they retain the same shape even after washing. An essential part of our bomber jackets are their ingeniously fine patterns. Our head seamstress has been sewing bespoke suits for decades. You can feel that in our jackets!
Where is the clothing made?
Our seamstresses live and work with their families in Nairobi. We collect our Kitenge prints from all over the African continent. The zippers come from Swaziland. And as soon as about 100 jackets are finished we send a delivery to Berlin.
Our All African bomber jackets, T-shirts and kimonos are worn in Copenhagen, Utrecht, Lugano, Berlin, Zurich and Vienna. This summer many customers had to wait more than a month, often even more than two months, for their jackets.
Meanwhile our team in Nairobi has grown and we are pleased that despite the waiting time almost all customers are very happy with their Mikono.
Image source: © Mikino
