Makhan Sakho is twenty-six, Guinean and Malian and Congolese by heritage, Parisian by address. He has worked as a model, stylist, producer, and creative director, but the camera is where his vision sits most fully. “I like when the photos speak for themselves,” he says. “The compositions, the colors, the textures — they allow us to understand the mixture that makes me.”

La Vie Est Belle picks up the song he started in Jour de Fête. Where that first project honored West African women in bazin riche, lace, and architectural headwraps, this chapter widens the frame: a tribute to Congo’s dandies, Mali’s lineages, and Guinea’s women crowned in divinity. Headpieces nod to Samory Touré, Mansa Moussa, and the Tuareg. Hats made by Sakho’s aunt, once a hairstylist for John Galliano at Dior, weave family into grandeur.

For the women, Sakho channels Oshun and Yemaya, mother and goddess, draped in Senegalese textiles and jewelry. For the men, second looks reimagine the Congolese sapeur tradition, a homage to Papa Wemba, King of La Sape. “If this editorial has a takeaway,” he says, “it would be celebration. All my projects are centered around celebration — of our culture, our richness.”

Photography by Anissa Hidouk. Models: Binta Diacko, Karen Ametowanou, Salif Ba, Béma Sangaré, Ka Amine Mouhamed.