00:01In Kinshasa, where traditions vanish fast and inequality runs deep, one designer is betting everything on a dying craft and
00:12a forgotten script.
00:13Can heritage really pay the bills?
00:18African design faces two battles, cultural erasure and economic disparity.
00:26Jess's answer? Fused tradition with entrepreneurship and put women at the center.
00:33In a city where traditions are disappearing fast, Jess is asking a bold question.
00:40What if the future of African design is written in the past?
00:44So we're working specifically on Congolese aesthetic and design.
00:48We're working with Cuba Textile and Mamdombe.
00:50Mamdombe is super interesting. It's a script that was created outside of the decolonization process.
00:58And it's a logical system and symmetric system based on two numbers, the five and two.
01:03So that was the first collection we launched about five years ago.
01:08And we're very happy because it was shown in Paris, in New York, in Milan as well, and recently in
01:15Tokyo, Japan.
01:16Meet Mamdombe, a script born to reclaim African identity after colonial erasure.
01:25Jess saw more than letters. He saw a design language powerful enough to rewrite the future.
01:33Mandombe became the blueprint for reimagining one of Africa's most iconic textile traditions.
01:41The Cuba Textile that fused Mandombe with raffia.
01:46Because it is a language, not just aesthetic, it can be applied on different mediums.
01:52And that's why today we're using it on textile, but also on furniture.
01:56And we believe from this it has the capacity to build heritage pieces, contemporary pieces.
02:04And most importantly, we have the IP still sitting in the hands of the workers, in the hands of the
02:10artisans.
02:11We're not just diluting an aesthetic to sell it outside, but we're actually presenting our identity in our own terms
02:18and making sure we create world-class products.
02:21We needed to give structures to their creativity.
02:24We needed to give structures so that they won't have to struggle in order to do things.
02:28And we organize them as a cooperative, and we meet at least four times a week in the workshop, and
02:36that's how we're able to make interesting products.
02:38That's how we turn, you know, creative African mythology into a job, into craft, into real profession, and that can
02:51create livelihoods, and that can create economic power, economic industry for the people who make it.
02:58Kuba Textile sell for thousands in Europe, but the women who weave them often can't afford school fees.
03:07Jess is flipping that script, turning artisans into co-designers, not labor.
03:16We dedicate ourselves more to completing our client's orders, and then regarding the designs they request, we also have to
03:24make an effort to respond exactly to what the client asked for.
03:28But I'm proud because as soon as I finish my rug, I get paid.
03:33Women artisans in the craft, in the textile industry, they're the ones who hold the knowledge, they're the ones who
03:39hold the technique.
03:40So working with them would make sure that we value this creativity, not just from a marketing perspective, but we're
03:46actually using them for their skills, for that knowledge, for tradition that they've honed from generation to generation.
03:53And they are the key level to move from just an extractive craft to actually building something from them.
04:02There are a few, and as a general rule, the creative industry, the craft industry, works a lot on exploitation.
04:09If you look at the data on a finished product, the artisans usually get 10% of the price.
04:16So on $100 piece sold, $10 would go to the artisans.
04:19For us, we're shifting this narrative and you're using technology to do so.
04:24So now we're moving to 90% digital payments, so mobile money transfer, and that remove the opacity of cash.
04:33Together, they re-imagine Kuba Textiles using Mandombe as a foundation, ensuring the people who carry the knowledge also share
04:43the value.
04:44Jess is taking the idea even further.
04:48This year, his studio becomes a school, training mostly women, not just in craft, but in entrepreneurship.
04:57Because tradition alone isn't enough, it has to sustain lives.
05:01It's very important to have this capacity building, and that's why we're building this school today.
05:08Because we want to double this number by the end of the year, so moving from 20 to 40 women,
05:14in order to really build the capacity.
05:17When women control not only the craft, but also the income, it changes all the value chain.
05:23Heritage isn't a museum piece, it's a movement.
05:28Jess is proving that African design can fight poverty, reclaim identity, and still look stunning in your living room.
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