The Cloth That Holds the Dead

The Cloth That Holds the Dead IMG 4592 2

An Egungun is not a costume. It’s a technology for making ancestors show up. Outside the communities that practice it, Egungun gets misread

A Ritual-Centered Black Friday

A Ritual-Centered Black Friday Gift Raffia

Tucked between Black Friday deals, algorithms, and product recommendations are African-rooted brands holding space on the global beauty shelf.

Woven Histories: A Series on African Hair

Black-and-white photograph of Amazigh women from Morocco, their long braids decorated with charms and beads, wearing traditional garments.

A three-part Guzangs series on African hair: how it has been styled, what it has signified, and how those traditions are evolving region by region. Hair across Africa has long carried lineage, spirituality, and social standing. Woven Histories traces that record across three regions, beginning in the Maghreb and ending in East and Southern Africa. […]

At UNGA 80, Fashion Moves Closer to the Center of the Sustainability Agenda

At UNGA 80, Fashion Moves Closer to the Center of the Sustainability Agenda unga

 At this year’s 80th United Nations General Assembly in New York, fashion was not on the sidelines. In the Goals Lounge, hosted by the UN Office for Partnerships, and in the SDG Media Zone, fashion leaders, innovators, and UN officials put textiles, circularity, and culture squarely into the conversation on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). […]

WORN OUT: A Series on Africa and Secondhand Clothing

WORN OUT: A Series on Africa and Secondhand Clothing thrift1

A three-part Guzangs series on the secondhand clothing trade and the African economies absorbing it. An estimated 15 million used garments enter Ghana every week, most of them shipped from the UK, the US, and China, and a global secondhand trade now worth more than five billion dollars a year treats the continent as its […]

Threads of Influence: A Series on Black Tailoring

Threads of Influence: A Series on Black Tailoring Kuba Bantu King Attire DRC e1757701247312

A seven-part Guzangs series on Black tailoring, written into and around the 2025 Met Gala’s “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” The Costume Institute’s 2025 theme made Black dandyism the subject of the year’s most-watched fashion event. Threads of Influence spent four weeks reporting around it, beginning with pre-colonial African menswear and ending on the Met steps. […]