Egypt Fashion Week returns for its third round, backed by EFDC and Brics Women’s Business Alliance

Check the tag on a shirt from your favorite Western clothing chain, and there’s a fair chance it was cut and sewn in Egypt. Garment exports crossed USD 3 bn for the first time last year, hitting c. USD 3.1 bn in the first 11 months of 2025, up 22% y-o-y. Nearly all of that is contract manufacturing for foreign brands, and the EU and US alone took 82% of exports in 1Q 2026. The factories are busy, but the labels mostly belong to someone else.

The Egyptian Fashion & Design Council (EFDC) would like to see more Egyptian names on the labels. Its third Egypt Fashion Week (EFW) runs from Thursday, 12 November to Saturday, 14 November, and it’s bringing in new friends to help, courtesy of the Brics Women’s Business Alliance (WBA) Egypt Chapter, with India as the guest country of honor.

Enter India

India currently chairs Brics and is sending a delegation from its Textiles Ministry and the Fashion Design Council of India, plus multiple prominent designers from the country, Indian Ambassador Suresh Reddy said at a press conference attended by EnterpriseAM, held at the Indian Embassy in Cairo last week.

India already has plenty of skin in the game. Some 70-75 Indian factories operate in Egypt, with nearly USD 5 bn in cumulative investment and around 45-48k Egyptian employees, Reddy said. An Indian group also recently committed USD 20 mn to Egypt’s denim and specialized fabrics sector, and talks are “actively underway” in other industries.

EFDC President Marie Louis Bishara arrived with a shopping list. Egypt spins extra-long-staple cotton, but its manufacturers import “substantial quantities” of synthetic and blended yarns from India, she said. Her own group brings in over 200k meters a year for specialized uniforms, EgyptAir’s cabin crew attire among them. The goal is joint ventures in Egypt for dope-dyeing and synthetic spinning, so local factories can make high-value technical textiles at home. Young Egyptian designers will also be heading to India for training in crafts like Indian embroidery.

Brick by Brics

EFDC made things official at the press conference, signing a cooperation protocol with the Brics Women’s Business Alliance (WBA) Egypt Chapter. The plan is to renew it every year, WBA Egypt Chapter Chair Marianne Ghali said. The alliance is bringing nearly 40 delegates from Brazil, China, India, Russia, and South Africa, among them textile experts, manufacturers, and retailers. Two retail buyers from Kuwait’s Nass Boutique are also flying in.

“Egypt Fashion Week is designed as a business-to-business networking hub,” EFDC Secretary-General Susan Sabet said. International buyers and retailers are coming to “source Egyptian production, examine our local brands, and distribute them abroad,” she added.

Perfecting the pitch

“The biggest problem is financing. It’s always financing,” Sabet tells EnterpriseAM. EFDC is a nonprofit, so donations are tax-deductible: “You can write it off your taxes, so it doesn’t really cost you anything.”

That’s where the new Investor Pitch Sessions come in. Erada Finance is powering them, and fashion entrepreneurs will get their shot in front of potential investors. Over half of Erada’s financing portfolio goes to female-led enterprises and craftswomen, and the lender wants to help “scale artisanal and emerging design ventures into export-ready businesses,” Erada CEO Amr Aboelazm said. This edition of Egypt Fashion Week also debuts a Next Gen Designer Hub for emerging designers and an Egyptian Beauty Hub for the local beauty industry.

Cotton on the catwalk

EFW 2026 is heading back to where it started: the Museum of Agriculture in Dokki, which hosted the first edition in 2023. The venue wasn’t picked at random. The museum houses Egypt’s Cotton Museum, which covers everything from Egyptian cotton to textiles and cotton from around the world. “We are cotton; Egypt’s industry is cotton,” Sabet tells us, calling it the most beautiful museum in Egypt.

More than 50 Egyptian designers are taking part, along with guest designers from India, China, Russia, Turkey, and Jordan. Here’s how the three days run:

• Thursday, 12 November: An Indian Fashion Night at the Indian ambassador’s residence opens the week;
• Friday, 13 November: The museum is open all day for runway shows, exhibitions, workshops, and panels. Six runway shows are on the schedule, opening with a Chinese show and closing with the Risky Boys, the crew that staged a runway at Wekalet El Balah a few years back. In the evening, the Turkish Embassy hosts an invitation-only show by designer Arzu Kaprol;
• Saturday, 14 November: The museum is open for another full day, and the Jordanian Embassy closes the week with an invitation-only showcase of 10 Jordanian designers.

You don’t need a diplomatic passport to get in on the fun. The museum is open to the public on Friday and Saturday, and one ticket covers both days. The 2023 edition drew almost 6k visitors a day, so expect company. Off the runway, there are workshops, industry talks, and entertainment, plus a stop at the Egyptian Beauty Hub, and founders hoping to raise money can sign up for one-on-one investor pitches. The Indian collections from opening night will also be on display all weekend. General admission tickets and subsidized student passes are available on TicketsMarché.

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