“Cloth is to the African what monuments are to Westerners”
Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui
We’ve seen African music, African literature and African films take the world by storm. Hot on the heels of these cultural arenas is African fashion, previously absent from the international fashion scene, whose vibrant energy has captured the stunned imagination of fashion houses and fashion aficionados around the world.
‘Fashion is a catalyst to tell deeper, richer, expanded stories from across the African continent. We hope visitors will be inspired and assumptions will be challenged.’
Dr Christine Checinska
Many of you reading this will have had the opportunity this year to witness history in the making at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. For the first time in its170-year history, the Victoria and Albert museum has chosen to focus on African fashion.
Is this focus a statement of intent on the part of the museum? A recognition that the time has (long) passed to place African fashion designers on a more equal footing with more familiar Western names from London, Paris, New York and Milan? Or is it that to prevent the well of creativity from drying up, the fashion industry must surely look to other sources to avoid diminishing returns – in which case perhaps Africa really is a good place to start mining for inspiration? Whatever the reason for the exhibition, at the very least it at least signals a desire to move beyond the current, firmly rooted Eurocentric ideals of beauty and style.
Exuberant and uplifting, the exhibition, expertly curated by Dr Christine Checinska, showcases over 250 objects drawn from a selection of mid-20th century designers and also designers from the contemporary, multifarious African fashion scene (45 designers from more than 20 countries, mirroring the myriad cultures that comprise the continent). We’re talking everything from clothing and head coverings to fabrics and photographs. It has been a couple of years in the making, and it’s an opportunity to finally spotlight what has long been overlooked and seemingly deserving of little more than perfunctory, anthropological or ethno-ecological recognition. The V&A African Fashion exhibition is a sartorial love letter that reminds us of who we are by reminding us of who we were. If you haven’t already seen it, I hope you will.
African fashion is the embodiment of a heritage as old as time itself. Our fabrics and clothes are finally being seen for what they really are: an authentic sartorial conversation about who we really are. Our prints depict African traditions curated by local artisans using native and original sustainable techniques. Our clothes draw inspiration from their surroundings, with different patterns telling a different story. Fashion may be an industry, but it is before that a means of expression – for the ages.
‘The joy of life and the joy of colour…it’s completely different and very particular to the continent. It’s a language of heritage, it’s a language of DNA, it’s a language of memories…’
Artsi Ifrach, Maison ARTC
African designers are changing the narrative
The number of African fashion designers is growing exponentially. And many of these designers are going out of their way to break stereotypes regarding African fashion and African cultures.
Let’s go back a couple of decades: African designers and artists were often labelled in pretty restrictive categories. Many faced systematic exclusion because of their race or origin. Their clothes were stereotyped as being little more than exotic, unsophisticated, bright-coloured fabrics, and certainly not worthy of archiving, let alone exhibiting. Even today, African fashion in the West is still ‘othered’: a majority of retail brands in the West will not stock African fashion, although aesthetics that arguably have their roots in Africa have long been subjected to cultural appropriation by European designers. Even today, fashion curricula still overwhelmingly fail to recognize the contribution of African fashion to global fashion trends. The number of resources that accurately depict the evolution and nuances of fashion in the continent is also very limited.
However, increasing numbers of contemporary African designers are changing the ‘bright and exotic’ narrative, breaking stereotypes and innovating. We’re seeing these designers blaze a trail in the official fashion week schedules of the fashion capitals of the world: London, Paris, New York, Munich – everyone’s talking about African fashion.
Contemporary African fashion designers are pioneering a new aesthetic of African fashion that comes not only from the astonishing abundance of creativity inherent in our peoples but also because of an increasing hunger for cultural reappropriation and a deep desire to tell our own stories. It allows us to look back on a blighted past with optimism for the future, to re-invent ourselves for a brave and modern new world.
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There are far too many trailblazing African fashion designers to mention here, but let’s start with Ugandan Fashion Designer Lamula Nassuma, who was told that “dark people should wear bright colours”– so she responded by creating her own line of black dresses.
Innovative designer duo Laura Tarot and Naay Sooley of Bull Doff have combined traditional weaving techniques with technology, incorporating a variety of unexpected materials, including iron, rubber tires and leather into the fabric while simultaneously reproducing actual patterns from different parts of Africa.
Jennifer Ronne’s sustainable fashion label Victoria Grace (‘style, people and planet’) creates striking Afro-European designs from discarded landfill and damaged second-hand clothes coming into Togo; these upcycled designs have earned her plaudits around the world, including features in France Mode24 and Vogue Germany. Her classic Heritage Collection (full disclosure: I own a dress from the collection), though made entirely of African print, transcends ‘indigenous markets’ and is loved and worn by women around the world.
Legendary Nigerian designer Shade Thomas-Faim adapted the iro wrapper and gele headwrap by creating a pre-tied version with hidden zips for a new generation of women on the move – dare I say it, a welcome move.
Rwandan brand Moshions used viscose and wool to create modern versions of traditional ceremonial attire, usually worn by royal families, and Malian designer Alphadi used the metalwork of his Tuareg heritage on glamorous dresses in the 1980s. Then there’s ‘father of African fashion’ Chris Seydou’s iconic bògòlanfini suit — marrying traditional cotton and wool cloth dyed with fermented mud with a western cut — which became a literal runway hit in the 90s, and Moroccan fashion designer Artsi’s combining of the burka and the trench coat to produced a fabulously futurist dress. I could go on and on.
And although it’s not particularly groundbreaking for designers to riff on history and tradition, few do it as well as these guys: Sindiso Khumalo, Femi Adebayo Jones, Aisha Ayensu of Christie Brown, Imane Ayissi, design duo MmusoMaxwell, Ami Doshi Shah, Lagos Space Programme, Maki Oh, Laduma MaxHosa, Loza Maleombho and Lisa Folawiyo, whose attention-grabbing designs are loved by celebrities such as Lupita N’yongo and Thandiwe Newton.
Sustainable is fashionable
Many African fashion designers are also riding the global wave towards more ‘conscious’ and sustainable approaches to fashion that their ‘conscious consumers’ are, quite rightly, demanding. Increasingly, we see African fashion designers working with local artisans in African villages to create handcrafted clothing using sustainable materials and practices while supporting local industries and historical processes. And they’re getting noticed for their efforts.
Catalysts for change
Over the past two decades, African societies have undergone seismic political, economic, demographic and socio-cultural changes. Many African countries have developed distinct middle classes who, along with those at the very upper echelons of society, dictate tastes and fashions that African ‘cultural entrepreneurs’ are only too happy to produce. And lifestyles are changing – witness the increasing numbers of African-owned ‘concept stores’ and e-commerce sites. These businesses are championing the continent’s diverse cultural heritage through their products. Social media is awash with accounts exhorting people to #buyafrican.
Fashion events like the Lagos Fashion and Design Week, African Fashion Week London (and Toronto), as well as ‘fashion weeks’ in Africa (notably Dakar, Lagos and Johannesburg) have played a major role in the promotion of African fashion. These events enable the best designers on the continent to collaborate and their clothes are promoted across the world and have generated a new enthusiasm for modern African fashion.
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High-profile brands like Moshions, Orange Culture, and IAMSIGO, have also played a key role in changing the world’s perception of African fashion. Landmark exhibitions such as the 2019 Berlin AfroFutures (Fashion. Hair. Design) exhibition and the aforemenioned Africa Fashion Exhibition at Victoria and Albert Museum, a whirl of stories, fabrics and styles, have also helped, exposing a hungry audience to fresh and diverse perspectives on African fashion (spanning centuries) and its innovations.
Bloggers, cultural agitators, designers, visual artists, makeup artists and photographers are helping to shape the ‘cultural renaissance’ we are seeing today. We’ve seen creatives with global platforms, such as Vogue editor Edward Enninful and the late artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear collection, Ghanaian-American Virgil Abloh, use their influence to promote African fabrics. Who can forget the collective stir at Louis Vuitton’s fall/winter 2021 men’s collection when Abloh paid tribute to his Ghanaian roots by introducing a distinctive kente fabric into the fashion house’s repertoire of prints? It was a bold move that reflected the growing desire to bring diverse perspectives into the fashion fold.
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The growing appeal of African fashion has no doubt been helped by Afro-centric celebrities proudly wearing African labels. Again, there are too many to mention here but they include Michelle Obama, Falana, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (who seems partial to labels such as Maki Oh and Gozel Green), Solange Knowles and Luptia Nyong’o.
Social media and pop culture have been vital to African fashion’s renaissance, with numerous accounts showcasing nostalgic, but sometimes painful images from our unforgotten past. But these very images have served as vital inspiration for the sartorial fight back, and the results are innovative, modern runway hits that pay homage to both our diasporic context and our cultural inheritance. Nigerian design label Tokyo James applies Savile Row tailoring to aso-oke fabric, Ivorian brand Kente Gentleman, creates classic suits from kente cloth, and South African heritage fashion and lifestyle brand Maxhosa Africa draws on the beading and painting traditions of the isiXhosa.
Then there’s Afrofuturism. Although hard to define, Afrofuturism continues to be a thing – thanks to the global success of the movie Black Panther, trailblazing creatives such as Lagos-based art director Daniel Obasi, and… Beyoncé. Afrofuturism has been described as a mash up of sci-fi sensibility and ancient African traditions. Almost imperceptibly, this fashion subculture has moved from niche fandom to the mainstream, and few of us today would blink at the sight of Black men and women sporting Himba braids, Bantu knots, Maasai collars, Besotho blankets and Egyptian ankhs and crowns. Afrofuturism signposts the bold creativity of an African-American diaspora that refuses to let go of its ancestral roots, so we can safely assume that it’s here to stay.
The future looks dazzling
African fashion is receiving more attention now than ever before. Luxury brand Chanel is all set to host a fashion show in Senegal in December this year. Birimian Ventures, a Cote d’Ivoire-based investment company that launched in 2021 to help African luxury and heritage brands expand regionally and internationally, announced earlier this year its partnership with private equity firm Trail Capital. The partnership will oversee the investment of $5 million each year over the next five years in a select portfolio of African brands.
Fashion schools are – at last – beginning to decolonize the fashion curriculum. Platforms such as Kimberley Jenkin’s Fashion and Race database are vital to this, giving people in the industry ‘tools that expand the narrative of fashion history and challenge mis-representation within the fashion system.’
From being restricted and othered to becoming the ‘future of fashion’, as has been described elsewhere, African fashion brands are now inspiring clothing and design globally. Today’s vanguard of contemporary African designers is moving away from the tired old clichés long associated with African fabrics and is bringing vibrant new life into heritage fabrics, craft and tradition.
African fashion is having a global moment. Let’s embrace it.
