WINDHOEK –All eyes in the fashion industry will once again turn to Namibia’s famous Swakara pelts when a fresh collection of 50,000 pelts will leave Windhoek on August 19 for the second Kopenhagen Fur Auction of 2014.
These pelts will be auctioned on September 09, in Copenhagen, Denmark. On the eve of the pelts being auctioned, two international fur designers and a Danish furrier will visit Namibia. The designers have been tasked by the Karakul (Swakara) Board of Namibia to design the 2015 Swakara promotional fashion collection.
Producers of black Swakara pelts had reason to smile after the famous “Black Diamonds” of Namibia made a dramatic turn around and fetched the highest price ever paid for a black lot at the first Swakara auction for 2014 in Copenhagen in April this year.
The black pelt average price of N$2 405.60 was paid by Oleg Tochilov from Russia’s Ekaterina Furs. Of the total offer of 68 500 swakara pelts, 64 462 were sold at the auction on April 10. The average price was N$566.87 per pelt, a decrease of 12.37 percent on the N$646.88 achieved at the September 2013 auction. The pelts sold consisted of 48 855 black, 14 030 white and 1 577 diverse pelts.
The value of the total offer of 71 961 Swakara pelts was in excess of N$50 million.
By Deon Schlechter