So I got back to doing my thing after a year of maternity leave. It’s been intense and I missed blogging, but at the same time I couldn’t bring myself to devoting the little free time I had to writing. But since I have more time on my hands now (things aren’t properly ‘busy’ at work, read: I lost my …

After a long hiatus, I wrote a little something on the Nigerian designer Maki Oh. The piece appeared on IAM Magazine. Maki Oh is the Nigerian womenswear label run by Amaka Osakwe. A fixed presence on global runways since her debut in 2010, Osakwe appeared at New York Fashion Week in 2012 and has since been invited to the White House …

“Talents” is a space to showcase and learn about the work of emerging creatives in the fields of black fashion, photography, and fine art. *** My Name is Diana Ejaita, Berlin-Based textile designer and fine artist. All of my work is definitely influenced by both my Nigerian and European origins. I like to play with the geometrical, ancient african simbologies and organic forms which …

I’m proud to share that I have started yet another exciting collaboration. The platform I will be writing for is IAM – Intense Art Magazine, a digital and paper publication focusing on visual arts, fashion, and design from Africa and the diaspora. My first article on the Kenyan designer Kepha Maina has just been published. Read the article here or on IAM. …

The peer-reviewd journal Africa and Mediterraneo is looking for interdisciplinary essays with a focus on sustainability, development, and entrepreneurship in African fashion. The journal is seeking contributions that offer a detailed analysis of the methods and experiences of “ethical fashion” implemented in Africa, as well as their theoretical and practical position in the global market, which grows more and more competitive by the day. The …

September begins with another interview. This time I explore the visual legacy of Dutch colonialism in the Caribbean, the representation of manliness, and the Afro-diasporan aesthetic of Shiba Huizer. Shiba is a London-based intuitive photographer from Amsterdam who uses subcultural references inspired by her family history in 1960s Curaçao to create a new vision of male beauty and Dutch colonial history. After attending the Rietveld Academy …

This is the second part of my email exchange – in French and English – with Tounzi, curator of Manufactoriel, for August’s episode of “Talents”. Manufactoriel is an institution of digital black visual culture, boasting about 30000 followers. The images have caught the eye of cultural institutions the likes of the MET Museum, which follows it on Twitter, and have been reblogged by prominent Afrocentric figures and platforms including …

“Talents” is a space to showcase and learn about the work of emerging creatives in the fields of black fashion, photography, and fine art. *** If your interests are black visual culture and African aesthetics I am sure you are a fan of Manufactoriel, the blog. This Tumblr is my no.1 destination when I search for compelling visuals from the continent and it has …

#OwnYourCulture is a social media movement that seeks to “decolonize fashion, one necklace at a time”. It showcases ‘traditional’ ornaments as fashionable pieces, in a bid to show the fashionable-ity  of traditional jewelry and reconnect to what fashion was and looked like in Africa before European colonization. Fashion consultant Chepkemboi Mang’ira of the blog MissVavavum launched #OwnYourCulture on Instagram  in 2015, asking users to style a traditional cultural piece with contemporary clothes.   Since …

Simon and Mary is a South African headwear company, established in Johannesburg in the 1930s by Mordechai Wozniak, a Polish immigrant, and run today by his great-great grandson Dean. The factory, which was originally called “Supreme Hat and Cap Manufacturers”, launched the actual brand “Simon and Mary” in 2014. It produces wool felt hats using original machinery from the 1960s. …