Menbere Alemayehu, CHEP ’90, says that she knew she wanted to work in fashion design when she was only 10 years old, but her path to a successful career in that field took a brief detour.

The detour occurred years later, when she left her home in Ethiopia to join her husband, Aklilu Kidanu, CHEP ’90PhD, in Chicago and enrolled in data processing courses.
“I was encouraged to study something ‘real,’ but I had no love for it. I was just studying to get my grades,” Alemayehu says. “When we moved to Delaware in 1985, I had my associate’s degree in data processing. I joined UD and took computer studies for one semester before I discovered apparel design. As soon as I changed my major, I was very happy, and I knew what I was going to do in the future.”

Alemayehu’s interest in apparel design blossomed at a small clothing factory in Newark, Del., where she learned all aspects of dressmaking, from the fabric stage to marketing through trade shows. After earning her bachelor’s degree, Alemayehu further developed her skills by working at home making patterns and samples while she took care of the couple’s two young children, Mizan and Hasabie.

Her husband earned his doctoral degree at UD in urban affairs and public policy.

“We moved back to Ethiopia in 1992, and I started a small dressmaking business with two employees,” Alemayehu, who today is owner of Menby’s Designs in Addis Ababa, says.
“In five years, the business grew to 30 employees. I ran the company for 10 years and then decided to go into the export business. The dressmaking business was mostly custom orders, and it took too long. I started making handmade textiles for home furnishings and fashion accessories, such as runners, pillowcases, bags and scarves.”

In 2002, Ellen Dorsh, a public health worker and a colleague of Alemayehu’s husband, proposed the idea of making handmade crafts for the U.S. market. Alemayehu agreed to make a few samples to show to retailers. The following year, she attended a trade show in the United States and went back to Ethiopia with so many orders for handmade crafts that she decided to quit dressmaking completely and focus on the export market.

“It’s been very good. It’s exciting,” Alemayehu says. “I can make new designs and come here [to the United States] and get a chance to participate in trade shows and see where the rest of the world is in design. I learn new things all the time. In Ethiopia, we have a long tradition of weaving: Our national dress is hand-woven. Weaving is part of the culture, and it’s big business in the country.”

Menby’s Designs, which now employs 55 workers, has partnered with Creative Women, Dorsh’s Vermont-based company that aims to improve Ethiopian women’s lives and, at the same time, to maintain a centuries-old art form. The business markets and sells the handmade textiles abroad while offering fair pay and good working conditions for its employees.

In Ethiopia, women gather the cotton grown in the Rift Valley lowlands and carry oversized loads on their heads back to their villages. All ages of women spin the cotton using a simple drop spindle to make the thread used for the warp. The colorful threads used in the weft, which produce the intricate patterns that distinguish Ethiopian textiles, are made from rayon that is purchased in the merkato, the largest open-air market in Africa.

Ethiopian weavers, traditionally the men of the Doko Gamos, in the central Gamo Highlands about 300 miles southwest of Addis Ababa, custom-produce the centuries-old tibeb, an intricate hand-woven border. Then, the seamstresses at Menby’s Designs transform the tibeb into pillows, wall hangings, shawls and table runners.

“Most weavers are men,” Alemayehu says. “Our aim is to transform more women into weavers.”

Earlier this academic year, Alemayehu was back on the UD campus to give a lecture, “The Challenges and Opportunities of Running a Socially Responsible Design Business in Ethiopia.” She was one of three speakers featured in the Department of Fashion and Apparel Studies’ 2006-07 lecture series, “Fashioning Social Responsibility.”

She also spoke to students in a pattern digitizing class taught by M. Jo Kallal, professor of fashion and apparel studies. During that class, Alemayehu showed the students elegantly designed scarves, placemats, wall hangings, pillowcases, handbags, bedspreads, table napkins and day bags and explained the complex production process that Menby’s Designs uses.
“When you have a section with a design, each line has to be picked by hand,” she said. “It takes two days to make one wall hanging. You can’t imagine how smart the weavers are: Many of them don’t know how to read and write, but if you give them just a picture, they can copy and weave it.”

According to Alemayehu, the greatest demand is for scarves and home furnishings, followed by holiday gifts. Creative Women receives the crafts directly from Menby’s Designs and sells them through 90 stores in the United States.

Alemayehu says she owes her success in Ethiopia to her education at UD, the guidance from her professors and the working experience she earned in Delaware. “It’s amazing!” she says. “I always think of my instructors, especially Jo Kallal, who helped me find my first job and excel in school. She was my mentor.”

Menby’s Designs has grown to become one of the best-known design companies in Ethiopia, and Alemayehu is recognized as a fashion expert. She and her business have been featured on the country’s national television station and in newspapers. The company is one of four that have been selected by the Ethiopian government to receive financial and technical support.

“Going back home was the best decision we made,” Alemayehu says. “The government was in transition and the country was emerging from socialism, so talking about fashion was a shame; it was the last thing you talked about. It was a big risk, but that was the time to go.”

Kidanu is director of the Miz-Hasab Research Center in Addis Ababa, which deals with the social aspects of public health, family planning and HIV/AIDS issues.

For more information about Menby’s Designs, visit [www.creativewomen.net].

—Martin Mbugua