12 Ethiopian Clothing Brands Worth Knowing (2026)

Ethiopia builds clothing from raw material almost no other country can claim: centuries of handweaving on wooden looms, eri silk introduced barely two decades ago, and leather from a cattle population of over 50 million. That heritage produced a shoe brand nicknamed Africa’s Nike, a leather label carried by Vogue and Forbes, and a wave of Addis Ababa designers turning traditional shemma cloth into ready-to-wear collections shown from Milan to Moscow.

Almost every brand on this list still runs out of Addis Ababa, working directly with the same weavers, spinners, and tanners the country has relied on for generations. Compared with Kenya or Ghana, Ethiopia’s fashion identity leans harder on textile craft passed down through households than on a concentrated retail or design hub, though Addis Ababa’s own fashion weeks are quickly changing that. Diaspora-founded labels like lemlem, run out of New York by supermodel Liya Kebede, still source their weaving from the same Ethiopian workshops.

Ethiopian Clothing Brands Overview

Here’s a quick overview of the twelve Ethiopian brands featured in this guide, from a shoe brand built out of recycled tires to a Riyadh-worthy leather house made entirely in Addis Ababa.

• SoleRebels – Fair Trade footwear brand since 2005, nicknamed “Africa’s Nike” for its global reach.
• Mafi Mafi – Sustainable ready-to-wear label since 2011, built on handwoven fabric from rural weavers.
• Yefikir Design – Everyday and bridal wear house since 2009, founded by a former psychologist.
• Genet Collection – Handwoven fashion atelier since 1992, one of Ethiopia’s longest-running labels.
• Gofere Sports – Sportswear brand since 2016, official kit supplier to Ethiopia’s national football teams.
• ZAAF Collection – Premium leather goods house since 2013, featured in Vogue and Forbes.
• Sewasew Design – Gabi hoodies and coats since 2007, accented with traditional Tilet patterns.
• Kunjina – Sculptural ready-to-wear label since 2017, known for hand-painted and embroidered detail.
• Mastewal Alemu – Zero-waste luxury house since 2021, shown at Moscow Fashion Week and Afro Fashion Week Milan.
• Demii Design – Cotton clothing line since 2019, launched by a former civil engineer.
• Republic of Leather – Bespoke luxury leatherwear house since 2014, sister brand to SoleRebels.
• Raklias – Upcycled clothing brand since 2022, reworking discarded blazers with hand-embroidery.

Ethiopian Clothing Brands

These twelve brands span footwear, leather, sportswear, and ready-to-wear, but nearly all of them share the same starting point: a craft that was disappearing until someone decided to build a business around saving it.

SoleRebels

Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Founded: 2005
Price level: mid-range
Product type: footwear
Style: artisanal, recycled
Website: solerebels.com
Instagram: @solerebels

Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu grew up in Zenabwork, one of Addis Ababa’s most marginalized neighborhoods, and graduated from Unity University in 2004 with a simple observation: Ethiopia had plenty of artisan talent and almost no way to turn it into jobs. She founded SoleRebels in early 2005 on a plot of her grandmother’s land, funding it with a bank loan of 580,000 birr and naming the brand after the rebel soldiers who once wore handcrafted rubber-tire sandals.

SoleRebels became the world’s first Fair Trade-certified footwear company, spinning its shoes on eucalyptus looms and cutting soles from recycled tires. By 2016 the brand was exporting to more than 45 countries with retail stores in Switzerland, Spain, Japan, and Singapore, a scale that earned it the nickname “Africa’s Nike.”

Mafi Mafi

Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Founded: 2011
Price level: contemporary
Product type: ready-to-wear
Style: sustainable, handwoven
Website: mafimafiet.com
Instagram: @mafimafi.et

Mahlet Afework started out as a teenage rapper and model in Addis Ababa’s hip hop scene before teaching herself fashion design through Google and YouTube videos. She founded Mafi Mafi in 2011 to give a modern expression to ancient Ethiopian textile techniques, working with more than 500 underemployed female weavers across rural villages who had lost their traditional market for handwoven cloth.

The label has collaborated with UK designer Markus Lupfer and exhibited at the London College of Fashion and Africa Fashion Week New York. Mafi Mafi also made the final round of the 2021 Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Frontier Challenge, an accelerator built specifically for early-stage fashion startups.

Yefikir Design

Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Founded: 2009
Price level: contemporary
Product type: ready-to-wear, bridal
Style: heritage, everyday wear
Website: yefikirdesign.com
Instagram: @yefikirdesign

Fikirte Addis began experimenting with clothing design in high school while training as a psychologist, a background she still credits for how she approaches her customers. She founded Yefikir Design in 2009, building everyday and occasion wear around hand-woven cotton and her family’s heirloom tailored garments, embroidery, and beading techniques.

In March 2011, Addis won a designer showcase award at the Origin Africa Fiber to Fashion event in Mauritius, which led directly to an invitation to Africa Fashion Week New York later that year. She remains an active advocate for child-labor-free production across Ethiopia’s fashion supply chain.

Genet Collection

Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Founded: 1992
Price level: contemporary
Product type: ready-to-wear, bridal
Style: handwoven, traditional
Website: genetcollection.com
Instagram: @genetcollection

Genet Kebede studied fashion design and garment construction in Italy and Argentina before returning to Addis Ababa, where she had lived through the famine and political disruption of her childhood and wanted to help rebuild opportunity for local women. She launched the label as Paradise Fashion in 1992, since renamed Genet Collection, and built her reputation around evolving the habesha kemis, the traditional floor-length dress made from shemma cotton and finished with patterned tilet trim.

More than three decades later, Genet employs a network of over 55 Ethiopian women and has shown catwalk and beach collections in Paris and Milan. She won the VV Grow Fellowship for women-led small businesses in 2018 and still sources her cotton and yarn from Fairtrade-certified vendors inside Ethiopia.

Gofere Sports

Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Founded: 2016
Price level: accessible
Product type: sportswear
Style: performance, team kits
Website: goferesportswear.com
Instagram: @goferesports

Samuel Mekonnen and Hassen Mohammed started Gofere with five sewing machines and 150,000 birr in capital, naming the brand after an Amharic word implying strength, courage, and bravery. They wanted a sportswear brand Ethiopians could proudly wear on television instead of importing kits from abroad, so Gofere handles its own design, manufacturing, and branding in-house rather than outsourcing production the way most sportswear companies do.

Gofere now supplies nearly every club in Ethiopia’s Premier League along with teams in Uganda and South Sudan, and in May 2023 it signed a deal with the Ethiopian Football Federation to become official kit supplier to both the men’s and women’s national football teams.

ZAAF Collection

Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Founded: 2013
Price level: premium
Product type: leather goods, outerwear
Style: handcrafted, heritage
Website: zaafcollection.com
Instagram: @zaafcollection

Abai Schulze was born in Ethiopia’s Wollo province, placed in an Addis Ababa orphanage at around age four, and adopted by an American family seven years later. She returned to Ethiopia after graduating from George Washington University and founded ZAAF at 24, naming the brand after the Amharic word for tree since most of her handbags, jackets, and scarves are named after Ethiopian trees.

ZAAF has appeared on runways at New York Fashion Week and been featured in Elle, Vogue, and Forbes, and received the UNESCO Tremplin Prize for Entrepreneurship. The brand now sells through boutiques in France, Nairobi, the United States, and its own Addis Ababa shop.

Sewasew Design

Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Founded: 2007
Price level: mid-range
Product type: outerwear, ready-to-wear
Style: traditional, cold-weather
Website: sewasewdesign.com
Instagram: @sewasewdesign

Sewasew Hailu founded her label in 2007 as a young mother with a love for fashion and design, splitting her work between Western-oriented pieces and traditional Ethiopian clothing that carries the country’s culture into everyday wardrobes. Her tailor-made wedding couture and evening gowns are made with fabric produced by her own weavers rather than sourced from outside suppliers.

The brand is best known locally for its gabi hoodies, sweaters, and coats, cold-weather pieces cut from the traditional Ethiopian gabi blanket and accented with Tilet patterns. Sewasew sells from its shop near the Atlas roundabout in Addis Ababa alongside its Telegram and Instagram channels.

Kunjina

Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Founded: 2017
Price level: contemporary
Product type: ready-to-wear
Style: sculptural, hand-detailed
Website: kunjina.shop
Instagram: @kunjina_

Kunjina Tesfaye was studying construction technology and management at Addis Ababa University, a “plan B” her parents pushed her toward, when a short fashion design course during her senior year changed her direction entirely. She launched her namesake label in 2017, developing a signature style built around hand-painted fabric, embroidery, and fabric manipulation that narrates the personal story behind each collection.

Tesfaye has since shown at the BRICS Fashion Summit in Moscow and been featured by OkayAfrica and Getz Magazine. She also co-founded Designers Collective, a shared retail space with two other Addis Ababa brands, after finding it exhausting to sell exclusively through social media and self-delivery.

Mastewal Alemu

Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Founded: 2021
Price level: premium
Product type: ready-to-wear
Style: zero-waste, sustainable
Website: instagram.com/mastewalalemu_
Instagram: @mastewalalemu_

Mastewal Alemu launched her eponymous label in December 2021, building it around hand-woven 100 percent cotton fabric produced on traditional looms by local artisan weavers. Her zero-waste design approach and commitment to local, ethical production have made the brand a reference point for sustainable fashion coming out of Addis Ababa.

Vogue Italia named Mastewal Alemu a brand to watch out of Ethiopia, and the label went on to present at Moscow Fashion Week before making its runway debut at Afro Fashion Week Milan in September 2024. Around 90 percent of her clients still come from the diplomatic community in Addis Ababa.

Demii Design

Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Founded: 2019
Price level: mid-range
Product type: ready-to-wear
Style: cotton, contemporary
Website: instagram.com/_____demii_____
Instagram: @_____demii_____

Mekdes Mesfin studied civil engineering and business management before launching Demii Design in 2019, right as the Covid pandemic was reshaping how small Ethiopian brands reached customers. The label produces high-quality cotton garments, one of several ventures Mesfin has built within Ethiopia’s fashion sector.

Demii positions itself around expressing individuality responsibly, encouraging a younger generation of Ethiopian shoppers to see clothing as a form of self-expression tied to positive social change rather than pure trend-chasing.

Republic of Leather

Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Founded: 2014
Price level: luxury
Product type: leatherwear, accessories
Style: bespoke, luxury
Website: facebook.com/RepublicOfLeather
Instagram: @republicofleather

Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu launched Republic of Leather in 2014, a second venture built on the same philosophy that made SoleRebels a global brand: source at the origin instead of exporting raw material for someone else to profit from. Ethiopia has supplied leather to top luxury houses for centuries, and Republic of Leather works directly with local leather experts and tailors to craft bespoke pieces from those same free-range hides.

Every order is handcrafted only for the customer who placed it and delivered door to door anywhere in the world within 21 days. Alemu built the brand around customer choice and maker support, with 5 percent of each purchase price returning to both the artisan and a charitable cause.

Raklias

Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Founded: 2022
Price level: mid-range
Product type: ready-to-wear
Style: upcycled, custom
Website: raklias.com
Instagram: @raklias

Raklias launched in 2022 as an independent Addis Ababa label built around local resources and fair pricing. Its debut collection, called Tilf, reworked discarded headstock blazers collected secondhand, reconstructing them with hand-embroidery made from thread scraps salvaged from a mass-production textile factory rather than buying new material.

Beyond ready-to-wear drops, Raklias also takes on custom orders for weddings and other occasions and offers contract manufacturing services, guiding other small Ethiopian brands through sourcing, sampling, and production. The brand rebranded and relaunched its identity in 2022 shortly after its first limited-edition release sold out.

Other Notable Ethiopian Clothing Brands

A handful of other Ethiopian labels are worth watching too, especially for founders interested in sustainable clothing brand positioning or artisan-led production models.

• Sabahar – Fair Trade weaving house since 2004, credited with introducing eri silk production to Ethiopia.
• Naked Ape – Knitwear label inspired by tribal patterns, a regular showcase at Hub of Africa Fashion Week.
• Ethiopian Batik – Addis Ababa label reinterpreting cross and Axum obelisk motifs through batik textile art.
• Natanem Couture – Habesha-focused label combining traditional weaving with local materials for everyday wear.
• Sabawiyan Leather – Addis Ababa leather goods maker built around locally sourced hides.
• Muya – Large-scale weaving workshop supplying homewares and garments to an international clientele.

Frequently Asked Questions about Ethiopian Clothing Brands