Afro-centric styles are often visually represented as a conquest of the urban space. I have written about blipsters who perform cool as a “proactive occupation” of the streets of the Western metropolis, and about South African sartorialists who collaborate with international brands to showcase township fashion’s message of emancipation. I have also sketched an analysis of the aesthetic of the township street style here and here, contending that the limiting geography of the township is an …

Fashion designer Charity Nyirongo of Mo Creations and Couture calls attention to the contribution of local fashion to Zambian tourism. Speaking at Hub of Africa Fashion Week 2015 in Addis Ababa, she invited the government to fund the creation of designing institutions to boost local talent and establish the country as a fashion and tourist destination. In particular, Nyirongo laments the collapse …

AlJazeera posted a video report on the prospects for Kenya’s economy entitled “Counting the costs? Kenya: the new factory of the world”. The video shows a country polarized between fast industrialization, consumerism, and the extreme poverty of more than 40% of its population. Kenya expects to have an annual growth of 10% by 2017, thus becoming one of the world’s biggest economies. …

H&M, Europe’s second fashion retailer, has launched its first store in sub-Saharan Africa in Cape Town and plans to open more in Johannesburg, following an increase in the local demand for top international brands. Promoting itself as a purveyor of “sustainable” and “democratic” fashion, the brand caters to the aspirational market of the South African middle class, as well as to “people who might …

French photographer Eric Lafforgue has documented the unique headgear that the Ethiopian Daasanach realize with materials they find in the garbage, such as bottle caps, broken watches, plastic straws, labels, etc. These ornaments signal the different social and generational positions of those who wear them, with children “wear[ing] the most basic wigs regardless of their gender, whereas the oldest women wear the most massive ones. …

Writer Taiye Selasi is credited for having introduced the neologism Afropolitan into pop culture with her famous essay “Bye Bye Babar” (2005), which reformulates cosmopolitanism and citizenship for hypermobile Africans. In the words of Selasi, Afropolitans “belong to no single geography, but feel at home in many”. The ambassadors of a “multi-dimensional thinking”, they “form an identity along at least three dimensions: national, racial, cultural”. This means …

In a short documentary on the fashion scene in Trinidad and Tobago entitled Haute Caribe, we learn about the latest trends from the forerunners of Caribbean fashion and how Trinidadian designers create garments that must be “enjoyed” and “felt” not only by their wearers, but also by the people around them. In this way, they establish an almost direct link between Carnival and …

Valentino’s Spring/Summer 2016 collection is out and it just put “wild Africa” back on the radar of mainstream fashion for a controversial reception. Described as “an ode” to the continent, the collections was designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli to channel the “regal” allure of the “primitive, the tribal, the spiritual.” To this aim, it showcased kaftans, smock dresses, flares, and tunics in geometric …