SOKO's website and film

It’s been months in the making but we finally launch our new website and our short film.

Thanks to the hard work of Scott Hamilton we have the website. With our new website we will now move our blog so please keep following us here.

Thanks to Max Fielden and Lucy Baker who spent two weeks with us at SOKO learning the ins and outs of what we do we have the SOKO film. You can watch it on the homepage of our website or on our youtube channel.

Please let us know what you think!

Student sponsorship

SOKO donates money every month towards student sponsorship at the Ukunda Youth Polytechnic (where SOKO is based). The Polytechnic have a number of students that are orphans and do not receive any financial support from their families, these are the students that SOKO is currently supporting. Here is a story of one of the students....

Christine has been studying Electronics at the Polytechnic for the past two years. Tragically last year her father died but her mother found a way to pay for her course fees alone, no longer having the support of her husband.

A few months ago Christine's mother suddenly died, this left Christine having to fend for herself.

Christine was determined to continue her studies at the Polytechnic, but now had no way of funding herself. Her extended family refused to help her so she ran up a debt of £100. Unfortunately, because of this debt the Polytechnic was unable to enter Christine for her exams.

A week ago Thomas, the manager of the Polytechnic, came to SOKO to ask for its support with Christine. SOKO has now agreed to cover the cost of Christine's exam fees and clear her debt enabling Christine to gain her qualification and increase her chances of getting a job once she finishes her studies.

SOKO's new machines have arrived!

At SOKO we have been waiting for a delivery of industrial sewing machines for the last 5 months; finally, last night the delivery arrived!

They were shipped all the way from England and boxed up incredibly securely. In fact they were almost too secure, which led to the transformation of Phillip from Master Tailor to Super-handy-man, so he took his hammer and screw driver and tackled the nails and huge staples. After some minutes struggling, the contents of all four cartons were revealed. Our new machinery for the workshop had arrived, including 3 industrial straight stitch machines, 1 button hole machine, 3 straight stitch machines, 1 cutting machine and an industrial iron, vacuum, steam unit.

All of us at SOKO are really excited about these new arrivals as they will speed up production and improve quality - definitely a milestone for all of us here!

Welcome Nicola

For the past week SOKO's tailors have been busy making the Winter 2010 ASOS Africa tailored jacket in preparation for the hand beaded lapels. The beading will be carefully hand sewn onto the lapels of 100 jackets in the next few days... pictures soon to come.

ALSO... We are lucky enough to have a new temporary addition to the SOKO team in the form of Nicola Thornley. Since graduating from university Nicola has worked with a number of high end fashion labels to include Nicole Farhi, Alexander McQueen and most recently Burberry; at Burberry Nicola was Product Development Coordinator for the Burberry Brit brand.

Having spent time working for companies involved in high profit and fast turnover Nicola has decided to take some time out from her day job. She has travelled to Africa to get an insiders look into the other side of the industry and spend some time with us here at SOKO.

We are very excited to have her with us - she already has a long list of projects to work on so watch this space...

Exhibition in aid of SOKO

SOKO would like to say a huge thank you to Paul and Chantal Cox (Jo's parents) for organising 'Exposition Chapelle de Saint George'.

Paul and Chantal opened their home in France for a week to showcase the work of five English artists.

The artists included Sally Elizabeth - jewellery designer, Hilary Garner - artist, David Maiden - artist, Nik Meergans - sculptor, Jeanette Todd - ceramicist. We would also like to thank all artists for generously contributed a percentage of sales towards the work of SOKO.

The exhibition was an amazing success.... see pictures below.

Busy Beaders

SOKO has now gathered a large group of beaders to work on the beading for the ASOS Africa Autumn/Winter 2010 collection. Our group of beaders are from the Maasai tribe (of Kenya and Tanzania) and, as one of the beaders told us, they are "born beading". Beading is traditionally done by women but throughout the years men have learnt the skill; we certainly have a large number of male beaders at SOKO.

The beads of the Maasai tribe are usually brightly coloured and elaborate pieces are produced. Beads are worn by Maasai to show status within a tribe or during a celebration, for example when the Maasai warriors (Moran) have been out in the bush for their coming of age they return to a huge celebration and are adorned with beautiful beaded pieces that the women had been making whilst waiting for their return.

The beaded pieces for the ASOS Africa collection have been specifically designed for the Autumn/Winter collection. Each piece takes one beader approximately 4 days and the aim is to make every piece identical.

Hopefully you can now see just how special these new beaded pieces for the ASOS Africa Autumn/Winter collection are!

ASOS Africa Autumn 2010

Check out the great new styles produced by SOKO for the ASOS Africa Autumn 2010 collection online.... visit www.tinyurl.com/asosafricaaw10