In an old post I anticipated that I would take part in a conversation on African fashion at Centro Internazionale di Quartiere (C.I.Q.) in Milan, where, on 29 September, I attended the art + fashion performance “DEI”, organized by Antonella Rizzo of HubWax and the Ecole de Couture AEFIJ, Guediawaye-Dakar. Antonella is an independent researcher/school counselor/artist. Above all, she is …

On Sunday 29 September I have been invited to take part in an “informal conversation” on African fashion at Centro Interculturale di Quartiere, C.I.Q. in Milan, along Emanuela Mora, full professor of Sociology at Cattolica University and director of the research institute MODACULT, and Claudia Mazzucco, journalist at ETNOTV. The conversation will take place after the fashion+art performance “Dei”, curated …

Last month “Selly Raby Kane: surrealist designer and social innovator” was published in Fashion Studies, as a downloadable and freely accessible paper. Citation: Picarelli, Enrica. “Selly Raby Kane: Surrealist Designer and Social Innovator.” Fashion Studies, vol. 2, no. 1, 2019, pp. , www.fashionstudies.ca/selly-raby-kane/ This is a milestone for my research, that I have had to put aside for other, more …

The universe of African fashion films is diverse and under-investigated. Most of the times they are left out of discussions of African fashion in spite of an uptick in their production and the positive reception on the continent. Given fashion’s heavy reliance and emphasis on storytelling for branding and marketing purposes, this lack of attention is hard to explain. In my …

Read my new post on the Senegalese designer Selly Raby Kane, now available – in English and French! – on BlackstotheFuture at this link. Here is an excerpt. Kane’s tactile storytelling unveils an eclectic exploration of the hidden facets of normality, where the alien is found in the everyday. A prominent member of Les Petites Pierre, an art collective headquartered at Ouakam (Dakar), Kane …