Sep 17, 2009 (Business Daily/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- She has been called Kenya's Christian Dior by those who have come across fabulous creations from her fledgling fashion house in Nairobi.

That reputation goes beyond the borders of Kenya into clothing stores in Europe and US where she has developed a vibrant clientele in the past 12 months with outfits that are cut for global markets but with an African touch.

Riding on design skills acquired during her stint in European fashion houses as an intern, the 28-year- old Kenyan of French extraction, Severine Devailly, is growing a niche market for African designs here in Kenya and in Europe.

Like many entrepreneurs, it is the decision to take a contrarian view of the global business environment that drove Ms Devailly into setting up a fashion house in Nairobi.

That decision came on the back of last year's forecast by Bain & Co, a consultancy firm that the luxury fashion market will shrink this year by up to seven per cent for the first time since it started tracking the industry in the 1990s.

Living up to US President Barack Obama's chief of staff Rham Emmanuel's mantra of not letting a crisis go to waste, Ms Devailly saw opportunity in the gloomy forecast and set up her own fashion house -- Severine Devailly.

"People were still going to buy clothes despite the recession. It is the luxury fashion houses that were going to post negative growth as people look for cheaper alternatives because they still want to dress up," she says.

The designer says her decision to set up her own fashion house was informed by the twin problems she faced upon arriving in Kenya two years ago. She could not find clothes that she liked and the ones she liked were too expensive.

Together with her Kenyan boyfriend, whom she met in UK while studying English, Ms Devailly who also speaks Italian decided to stay in Nairobi and set up a fashion house.

"I am French, so fashion is in our blood," she says, recalling the fashion games she played aged only six that allowed her to draw clothes.

Although she has no formal training in fashion, Ms Devailly acquired top design skills in France where she worked for Christian Dior, one of the best known fashion houses in the world as an assistant in the production of accessories.

That stint enabled her to rub shoulders with top class designers such as John Galliano, who was the creative director for two years -- getting them materials and tools they needed to create garments for the fashion house.

"It is at Christian Dior that I learnt, for instance, that silk needs a special needle," she says. That experience was so enriching and lasting that Severine says if she was to take a fashion course today, it would only be to learn fashion history.

"It must be interesting to learn where fashion came from, the origins of the colours and the costumes," she says.

Working in her backyard with the help of two female employees, Ms Devailly is slowly building what she says will become a world class Kenyan fashion house. And she is using the Internet, mainly Facebook, where she has 5,000 friends to market her creations, which she sends to her mother, who lives in France for distribution.

"It would be very expensive to distribute them from Nairobi," she says citing the many e-commerce challenges in Kenya.

The first collection of Severine Devailly fashion house featured at a small show in downturn Paris in September last year. And that is where she made her first mistake. The collection was too big -- 30 garments.

"I wanted to please everybody but with the second collection last June it was more of myself. I can say I found myself," she says of the 13 garments on show.

Ms Devailly says her business model is hinged on the desire to offer people the opportunity to dress up and look good without spending too much. A Severine Devailly garment costs between Sh1,500 and a little over Sh5,000.

"It pleases me to see clients and friends in Europe going out and feeling good in my garments for which they have spent only a tiny fraction of what they would spend for similar clothes made in Europe," she says.

Her target market, she says are the young and the young at heart - aged between 18 and 50. Severine Devailly creations are full of colour and fun with youthful cuts like deep V neck lines. The collections include bikinis and miniskirts that cater for the active and trendy youths that constitute one of the largest buyer markets in Europe. ChallengesRunning a fashion house from Nairobi has however presented Ms Devailly with challenges she reckons she would never have had in France.

Lack of a strong textile industry has meant that she is not consistent in her collections. This means she cannot consistently produce a large number of outfits using the same fabric.

Her first collection was largely made up of shiny Kikoy from Nairobi's Biashara Street, but she soon ran out of the fabric forcing her to use something similar.

Now she is thinking of shipping in fabric from India but that she fears would mean keeping capital tied up in stock for much longer.

Ms Devailly has also tasted the wrath of Nairobi's rabid landlords one of who asked for Sh300,000 down payment for rent even before construction of the building she wanted to occupy was finished.

Currently, the Severine Devailly fashion house is located in Nairobi's Karen estate, and in Mombasa's Watamu (North Coast), where she is planning to hold a show this coming Christmas.

In the long term she says, the plan is to hold two shows every year.

Ms Devailly says her creations have been a hit with many Kenyans but in it is in the foreign markets where she still needs some push to get where she wants.

Her hope is that one day she will be able to feature at the prestigious Paris Fashion Week, alongside her former boss John Galliano. "I have to do everything to make it succeed. It is my baby," says Ms Devailly.

<<Business Daily. Distributed AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). -- 09/18/2009>>