The brand, Made For A Woman, has created a space where women are celebrated, supported and championed within the fashion industry… all at the production level.
Behind every garment–intricately woven and beautifully crafted with expertly curated designs, colors and materials–is a face. With furrowed brows and narrowed eyes these faces focus on every stitch, meticulously constructing a bright new bag, a wide-brimmed hat or a pouch just big enough to stash one’s makeup. These are true artisans, and they are at the forefront of each and every design sold by Made For A Woman.
This luxury brand is bringing gender equality, sustainability and authenticity to the masses through its human-centric business model, is changing the way in which consumers interact with the products they purchase by empowering those who made them.
Conceived by Italian-Indian designer and entrepreneur, Eileen Akbaraly, in 2019, Made For A Woman produces high-quality luxury ready-to-wear garments and accessories in Madagascar. Through her brand, Akbaraly is making strides to transform the industry she once looked upon with a disapproving eye. Seeing firsthand how underage workers provided labor for minimal wages, the designer was inspired to grow her own brand on her own terms. “I didn’t really understand that, I didn’t appreciate that and I didn’t think that was normal. I didn’t think that behavior was respectful to the humans behind the clothes,” Akbaraly told Mission. “And so I decided to start Made For A Women and employ only people from very marginalized and vulnerable backgrounds.”
Most of the employees at Made For A Woman are from Madagascar, an island country that suffers greatly from high poverty rates and gender inequality. Made For A Woman’s target research concludes that not only does 81% of Madagascar’s population live on less than $1.90 USD a day, but one in four women are survivors of gender-based violence and thus excluded from the economic and social sphere. Employing over 350 artisans, the majority of them women, the brand makes a conscious choice to work with disregarded community members including single mothers, disabled individuals and physical abuse survivors.
“I think it’s super important that while I develop, I develop with the artisans.”
Because the artisans are such an integral part of product manufacturing, personally handcrafting each piece of every collection, Akbaraly feels her employees must also be integrated into the design process to ensure a well-rounded business. “I think it’s super important that while I develop, I develop with the artisans,” said Akbaraly.
With Akabaraly’s expertise in colors and trends, which comes from her time traveling and extensively researching every facet of the fashion industry, the initial design is developed independently. However, the prototype is then presented to the artisans for their approval, input, opinions and suggestions. “There’s no hierarchy. Just because I’m CEO doesn’t mean that I make more important decisions than anybody else,” said Akbaraly. “It’s really this mentality that I’m trying to integrate into my company: How your opinion as an artisan is as important as mine.”
In addition to empowering the local community through employment opportunities, Made For A Woman prides itself on using locally sourced materials to celebrate Madagascar’s natural resources. Raffia palm, a dense fiber that can be woven into intricate patterns and crafted into a structured textile, is used in almost all of the brand’s unique bags, hats, accessories and ready-to-wear pieces. The raffia is dyed using vegetable colors and acid-free pigments, or pigments that use minimal water and metal which make them less harmful than other dyeing alternatives.
Made For A Woman’s website is one of the brand’s most innovative spaces. Aside from performing as the typical platform for consumers to browse the newest collections and make purchases at their leisure, the website exudes authenticity. Firstly, on every individual product page, the artisan who handcrafted the garment is credited with their name and how long it took for them to make the piece. There is then a link that leads the consumer to a separate landing page dedicated to that individual which shows their face and links to other products they craft for the brand.
“I think it’s so important that a consumer knows who made your product. I find it crazy that an artisan who creates your product gets no credit for it and all the credit goes to the creative director. I find that completely unjust.”
“I created Made For A Woman because I believe in complete transparency,” said Akbaraly. “I think it’s so important that a consumer knows who made your product. I find it crazy that an artisan who creates your product gets no credit for it and all the credit goes to the creative director. I find that completely unjust.”
Made For A Woman has also dedicated a space under each product listing for price transparency. This trendy new industry term is applied to brands that give consumers a breakdown of why an individual garment is priced as listed. A price transparency layout typically includes the money spent on raw materials, labor, transportation and other production costs.
Price transparency helps to give the consumer a greater perspective on the cost of goods and breaks down preconceived notions about luxury pricing. “There’s this thing about straw bags or straw hats that they’re supposed to be less expensive. It’s just this psychological approach that people have about certain products. For example, the idea that a Chanel bag needs to be extremely expensive,” said Akbaraly. “We put the same amount of work into our products. Some of them take three months to make, and I think it’s important that the consumer knows how much work has gone behind each product.”
Despite the brand being so young, Akbaraly has already received praise and recognition for her sustainable and scalable business model. The designer has garnered recognition as a finalist for the Human Rights Award at the CNMI Sustainability Awards in 2022, Best Commitment to Sustainability by the Better World Forum in Cannes, the Green Night Award for Sustainability at Green Night in Switzerland 2020 and a finalist for the CNMI Bicester Green Carpet Awards at Milan Fashion Week 2023.
“We put the same amount of work into our products. Some of them take three months to make, and I think it’s important that the consumer knows how much work has gone behind each product.”
Partnering with other luxury brands such as Chloe, Armani and MODES has given Made For A Woman a much larger platform to express their vision and gain traction. Akbaraly revealed that in order to meet the demands of these more notable luxury brands, Made For A Woman is focusing on creating a harmonious mix of traditional craftsmanship with innovation for a more contemporary approach to design. “I think this is what luxury houses are looking for, a social impact project but at the same time craftsmanship that can be innovated and modernized,” said Akbaraly.
Believing strongly in slow fashion, the antithesis to the current ‘fast fashion’ market made up of constantly evolving clothing using cheaply sourced materials, the designer’s goals for the future of the brand are to showcase Madagascar as an economy where beautiful, sustainable and ethical art comes from.
“I really want it [Made For A Woman] to be a business model that can be reproduced in other emerging markets and prove to the world that even by putting humans first, you can still be a profitable company,” said Akbaraly.
