Materials

Duration: 1 hour

Learning Outcome: After this unit, the learner will know different type of materials they can use for their businesses.

Personal story

Mohamed Ahmed Almoctar is also known as Hamada. He is a Nigerien jeweller and jewellery seller. He is member of a cooperative of 140 people in Nigeria, among which 40% are jewellers. There he acts as a treasurer, as well as a jeweller. A part of the profit of the cooperative is redistributed among the members and another part is allocated to social projects and local development projects. As an example, they contributed to the creation of a school and bought a donkey to facilitate the water transportation to a small isolated village.

Hamada is a Tuareg and as such has always been familiar with manufacturing of silver jewellery, which is one of the traditional Tuareg crafts. The cooperative of which he is a member used to sell its products (mostly jewellery, but also other artistic and craftsmanship products such as leather products) to tourists visiting Niger. But with the rise of insecurity in the region and thus the decline of tourism, the cooperative decided to start selling their products directly in Europe. Hamada belongs to the people that participate in that commerce.

Since 2006, when he came to Marseille for the first time to sell the products of the cooperative, he comes to France on a regular basis and stays there for two months (or more if he obtains a longer visa) to sell the products before going back to Niger to produce more items.

Hamada insisted on the positive impact of the possibility of moving regularly between both countries. This way he establishes a positive relationship with his clients, who know which market or craftsmanship fair to attend in order to find him. They also have his contact cards if they wish to make special orders.

It also enables him to spend long periods of time in his home country, close to his family. Moreover, he can’t keep working using all the traditional tools and the same raw materials that make his products authentic.

Also, he is very proud of the social actions taken by the cooperative and wants to underline the fact that his activity is not only business oriented.

Introduction to the Learning Unit

At the end of the didactic unit the students will have acquired certain knowledge. It will allow them to go deeper into the wide concept of “the material” and able them to make different classifications according to specific criteria.
We will also go deeper into common materials within the fashion sector, with several examples.