South African designer Lukhanyo Mdingi creates distinctive fashion for his eponymous label. His steady rise has led to his debut at the New York Fashion Week: Men’s and Women’s Fall/Winter 2019, adding greater inclusivity to the fashion industry’s catwalks.
Fleeing forced marriage and in pursuit of an education, Kafia Mahdi left Somalia. After almost a year, she crossed from Serbia into Hungary where she has remained under protected status. It is in Hungary that the 19-year-old’s transformation from child refugee to fashion star has occurred.
The youth of Africa today are positioned in an intermingling of cultural identities and there is a need to find a contemporary style that merges those identities. Black dandyism has helped curate an aesthetic that is well groomed, refined yet inclusive of African sensibilities. Most of all, it has ushered in the age of African gender fluid fashion.
American First Lady Melania Trump was in Africa to promote her vague “Be Best” campaign. However, the focus has been less on deciphering the campaign’s viability and more on her “Out of Africa” inspired and outdated colonial fashion.
Music icon Janet Jackson has returned to the music scene in full force, first by reviving her State of the World tour, which is a rebranding of 2015’s ill-fated Unbreakable tour, and then by releasing new music that features the aesthetic of African designers.
Through the evolution of a Victorian-style dress culture, the Herero women of Namibia have held on to a piece of 19th century history to showcase pride in their identity and as a symbol of their troubled history.
At only 19 years of age, the creator of the brand Head of State+, Taofeek Abijako, is presenting his 2019 spring/summer collection at New York Fashion Week.
The International Fashion Showcase (IFS) nurtures and presents work from the finest up-and-coming fashion talent from around the world. Next year’s designers will include talent from Kenya, Rwanda and South Africa.
Ozwald Boateng unveiled his new ‘Africanism’ collection at Arise Fashion Week in April 2018. “I wanted to push that connection between my cultural roots and my design to the forefront, and I felt that there was a way that I could create an African aesthetic, but in a very modern way,” he wrote in Vogue.
African superstar Wizkid not only became the first African musician to walk on a Dolce and Gabbana runway but he got to do it to his own music and alongside supermodel Naomi Campbell.
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