Building African Fashion One Customer at a Time.

From a Personal Need to a Fashion Enterprise

For Wandia Gichuru, the opportunity that led to Vivo Fashion Group emerged from her own experience.

Before entering the fashion industry, Wandia spent years working in international development and policy advisory roles. Her career gave her exposure to different markets, organizations and approaches to economic development. Fashion, however, was not the obvious next chapter.

In 2011, Wandia and her friend Anne Marie Burugu established a business initially focused on dance and fitness wear. They were participating in activities such as dance, yoga and Pilates and realized that some of the products they wanted were not readily available in the local market. That observation became the starting point for a business.

The early venture operated online, yet the founders soon discovered that selling clothing through a website came with a practical limitation: customers wanted to see and try on the products. Some began visiting Wandia’s home to do so.

The business was growing beyond the space in which it had started. They opened their first physical store at The Junction Mall in Nairobi, marking an important transition from an online venture into a retail business.

Today, Wandia has built her leadership around the opportunity to create stylish, accessible clothing that reflects the preferences, needs and lifestyle of African women — through a customer-led approach to product development, African design and local manufacturing.