This week the artistic platform Design Indaba has held its Annual Festival and handed the stage to South Africa’s top creative minds. These include Zipho Gum, aka Tony Gum, a 20-year-old film student at the the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and a social media sensation. Gum caught the collective attention with her “Coca-Cola” series showcased at Johannesburg Art Fair 2015, quickly becoming one of the foremost …

The Schomburg Center released the full stream of the event “Visually Speaking: The Timeless Art of Kamoinge” about the historic Kamoinge Workshop. The workshop was founded in 1963 with the aim of counteracting stereotypical media images of black Americans and the bias of mainstream institutions toward photographers of colour. The original group included James Ray Francis, Louis Draper, Herman Howard, Earl James and Calvin Mercer …

An interesting piece on Beyoncé’s Formation video by Dr. Nettrice Gaskins Renegade Futurism Beyonce and the secret society Trayvon Martin’s (Sandra Bland’s) birthday, Mardi Gras, Black History Month, Black Panthers’ 50th/Super Bowl’s 50th. Beyonce’s release for her latest song and music video, Formation, was strategically dropped today. Already, bloggers and critics are analyzing the video, so here I am taking …

Yesterday I launched the page of my research project on Facebook with the aim of reaching out to a diversified audience of scholars and enthusiasts of African fashion. My mission is to enhance the appreciation of Africa’s contribution to culture-oriented fashion and creative work in and outside academia. This means I will not use the platform to just promote my own writing, but …

An article by Laura Havlin that appeared in AnOther Magazine back in September is a good source to get acquainted with the afrofuturist aesthetic and to point to its influence on afrosartorial trends. In particular, Havlin notes the correspondence between the afrofuturist concept of non-linear time and the knowledge that space contains multiple geographies of dwelling and belonging. This is one way of pointing to the relevance of diasporic consciousness for cultural …

Laduma Ngxokolo is a prominent new designer from Port Elizabeth, South Africa. MaXhosa, his brand of men and women’s knitwear made with locally-sourced materials, is showcased at major fashion weeks in the continent and can be purchased at stores in South Africa, Namibia, the UK, France, and the Netherlands. Market projections are positive and so is the feedback from consumers and international actors, including Mercedes Benz and the Norwegian …

Designers Africa Fashion Guide covers Adele Dejak’s latest collection of accessories named after the least valuable currency of Nigeria, Kobo. The accessories come in black and gold, respectively Dejak’s brand colour and a symbol of happiness, and are affordable, from $10 to 50. “Kobo represents urban culture and is for edgy people everywhere who want to stand out, who are …

Though Rosa Parks is best known for her role as a civil rights activist, the Alabama native also worked as a seamstress at the Montgomery Fair department store. She was on her way home from work Dec. 1, 1955, when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger. At the time, …

“Leaving the UK and going ‘home’ to Ghana” is an article by BBC News on reaspora, or reverse migration – the return of first and second generation immigrants to Africa. It comments on two video interviews with a lecturer/deejay and a businessman from Ghana, who have moved back to Accra from London in recent years. This article is useful to summarize a widespread view on reaspora …

A few weeks ago, Bloomberg posted an analysis of Africa’s luxury goods market containing useful data to understand a core aspect of the “Africa rising” narrative: the rise of the super-luxury economy of fashion and accessories. Citing projections by Euromonitor of a steady annual growth of Sub-Saharan GDP at 4-5% for the next five years, the study states that the continent is replacing Eastern Asia as …