Inside a workshop bordering her family’s rubber plantation on the outskirts of Abidjan, Ivorian designer Rebecca Zoro is busy tapping into her creative roots. Global celebrities such as Beyoncé have worn her clothes, under her label Yhebe Design. Currently, she is retreating from attending glitzy glamourous events to concentrate on her next collection.
After studying fashion design at Collège LaSalle Maroc in Morocco, Zoro started Yhebe Design in 2015 to capitalise on an industry with massive economic potential in Africa. With the global apparel market valued in the trillions, Africa’s share of annual textile, clothing, and footwear exports was only US$15.5 billion in 2023, according to UNESCO. The African Development Bank (AFDB) estimates the sector will be worth US$50 billion by 2030. For go-getters like Zoro, that represents an opportunity to make an impact.
Ivory Coast is considered to be the economic powerhouse of francophone West Africa and has consistently been one of the continent’s fastest-growing economies since political stability returned after 2011. The country is also the third-largest cotton fibre producer in Africa. For Zoro, the opportunity is about converting Africa’s cultural capital into sustainable economic power. Her strategy leverages indigenous design, domestic manufacturing, and storytelling that explores African heritage and sense of style.
“My vision for fashion, as an Ivorian designer, is really about expressing what I have known since childhood: the way my mother dressed, how I saw my aunts and sisters – that entire world that shaped me. It’s about highlighting and sharing our pagne (fabric), to show that here, we have our own sense of style, no matter the situation,” she explains.
Inspired by her Ivorian roots
Beyoncé’s selection of Zoro’s signature “Adjoua” skirt to wear at the Global Citizen Festival in 2018 was a marketing game-changer for Yhebe Design.
“Our woven fabrics and our culture, which is so vast, especially with over sixty ethnic groups in the Ivory Coast, provide great material to showcase; there’s a lot of potential for Ivorian designers,” Zoro explained.
Online representations of Zoro’s different styles show Yhebe collaborations with top designers and brands in a wide range of styles and palettes, ranging from highly colourful to earthy. Even when the patterns are not obviously African, the cut of the cloth for even the most sophisticated designs clearly draws inspiration from traditional garments. Many of her garments are sold through e-commerce, allowing her to continually draw inspiration from her roots in Ivory Coast.
By intentionally focusing a global business on Ivorian culture powered by e-commerce, Zoro is playing her part in growing Africa’s reputation from one of raw commodity exports to one of high-value products.
Niche high-end market
Zoro has also made sure to position Yhebe Design’s range in Africa’s growing luxury bridge segment, where designers produce stylish, high-quality, story-rich clothes that are a step up from mass-market, but not so expensive that only the super-rich can afford them. Her price point reflects this. The Ananse Africa Marketplace, an e-commerce platform, sells Yhebe Design’s ready-to-wear pieces at prices that range from US$90 to US$320.
Beyond the clothing brand, however, Zoro is also selling the image of a confident, entrepreneurial, culturally-rooted Ivorian woman with her straight cuts, geometric motifs, bold colors, and collaborations with other women.
Her collaboration with the global ice cream brand Magnum on the AWA capsule collection in 2022 directly tackles the gender bias plaguing agricultural supply chains. Ivory Coast produces about 40% of the world’s total cocoa supply. The AWA initiative, named after the Baoulé word for ‘woman’, was set up to support female cocoa-producing groups by reinvesting 100% of the funds generated from the collection’s sales right back into them.
Clothes for Mandela
Revered Ivorian-Burkinabé designer Pathé’O is another international designer who calls Ivory Coast home. Known around the world for having dressed African icons like the late Thomas Sankara and Nelson Mandela, Pathé’O can often be found mentoring students at his studio, showroom, and workshop in Abidjan. The designer paid tribute to the dynamic contribution women have made to the continent’s fashion sector.
“Women were always dominant. It must be recognised that women’s tailoring became widespread across the Ivory Coast long before men’s tailoring took hold. That is the history here,” he said.
The impact of African cultural investment through sectors like fashion, extends beyond the ledger sheet however; it’s also an investment in self-belief. As Yao Prisca, a designer trained by Pathé’O, affirmed, skills acquisition is vital for confidence.
“When a woman learns a craft or gains knowledge, she also learns to believe in herself. And through these experiences, she can also grow and build her own business,” she said.
Mom knows best
Zoro’s design philosophy is inseparable from the traditions of female grit and entrepreneurial spirit that defined her upbringing, according to the designer’s mother.
“In our family, we are strong, hardworking women. I’m not the kind of woman who just sits around doing nothing. I’ve done business, I work hard, and my daughter inherited that strength from me and from our family…where we come from, creativity is part of who we are, it’s deeply rooted in us,” said her mother, Flamilou Odette.
While her refuge outside Abidjan is an important break for her, the demands of the international fashion calendar, and her vision for Yhebe Design as a cultural and economic launchpad are a constant challenge. Zoro recognises that her ability to innovate needs to be cyclical, requiring regular replenishment from her creative source.
“For me, right now, it’s very, very important to be with my family, to come home and recharge… I need to reconnect with the earth, the sky, the forest, and above all, the love of a mother, the family comfort,” Zoro explained.
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