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 …

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 …

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 …

To promote its 2015 Autumn Winter collection, Ben Sherman released a fashion film shot in Johannesburg in collaboration with a team of African talents. These include South African American director Meja Shoba, the Congolese musician Pierre Kwenders, and the Johannesburg-based collective Boys of Soweto (BOS), featuring as protagonists and stylists. The two-minute film takes place on a sports field, where three …

Last week South African photographer and video-maker Anthony Bila released a new volume of his yearly series “Black History March.” The 3-minute video features the fashion duo Sartists and pays homage to 1950s fashion with beautiful visuals and the dandies’s classic styling. Following a project that they have been pursuing for some time and independently of each other, Bila and the Sartists join forces to …

The Sartists are a couple of “sartorial-artists” from Johannesburg who have been enjoying significant visibility worldwide since appearing in a Coca-Cola commercial in 2013 and on the South African trendsetting page Flux. Their style mixes vintage and contemporary elements, in the fashion of gentleman revivalism made popular by Sam Lambert and Shaka Maidoh of Art Comes first. In their blog, the Sartists collect visual cues of a nostalgic reworking of classic …