The Kenyan duo 2manysiblings is back with the fashion & art project “Projected fragments” realized by Joseph Chege. Of all their work, this is the one I like the most – it really brings out the beauty and potential of Afrosartorial creativity. Enjoy!

Nigerian brand IamISIGO released the lookbook of “Modern Hunters”, its SS2016 collection designed by Bubu Ogisi, with footwear by Tunde Owolabi. The brand reflects on heritage and the visual appeal of vibrant colors, creating “boy-meet-girl” garments that display a consciousness of the changing lifestyles of West Africans. Ogisi states on Instagram that the collection is spread across the idea of hunting being a “sport” …

A new short film by Samantha Casolari is out, featuring Lupita Nyong’o dancing to music by Valentin Sip. The caption reads: Oscar Award winner and star of blockbuster-to-be Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Lupita Nyong’o loses herself in candid footage captured during her recent Elle UK cover shoot. This is not the usual behind-the-scene video. With jumpcuts, low light, and an atmospheric soundtrack Casolari …

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 …

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. …

In September 2014, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art launched an exhibition of the work of Nigerian photographer Solomon Osagie Alonge. Alonge (1911-1994) was the official photographer at the Royal Court of Benin, but he did not document only gatherings and rituals. He also ran a studio (opened in 1942) where he took pictures of up-and-coming Nigerians of the pre-and post-independence decades. Alonge’s portraits capture history …

On March 6th, 2015 Tumblr and other social media hosted the first BlackOutDay to counter the notion that beauty is a whites-only affair. According to a statement published in the official page of the movement, on BlackOutDay black users “like and reblog selfies of each other and fill our dashboards with encouragement”. Since then, the day has been made seasonal, with the second event taking …

Today the Costume Institute of the African Diaspora (CIAD) in London remembers the mooring at Tilbury Docks of the first Empire Windrush ship to the United Kingdom in 1948 with some great pictures of Caribbean immigrants in their best clothes and a post on Tumblr. The clothes captured in the shots encapsulate the hopes and expectations of thousands of imperial subjects who left the West Indies in search …

This post contains theoretical annotations on photo-manipulation that I am collecting for a publication on retro-looking fashion photography. *** Digital photography is the main medium of dissemination of vernacular sartorialism and, by extension, of the afrosartorial aesthetic. Selfies are the currency of countless blogs that promote racial cool/beauty/pride (Pham 2015), while fashion blogging depends on digital photography to document emerging trends (Rocamora …