WORN OUT — Part II: How African Governments Are Responding to the Textile Waste Crisis

WORN OUT — Part II: How African Governments Are Responding to the Textile Waste Crisis WhatsApp Image 2025 07 19 at 22.19.04

Western wardrobes don’t end in Europe or North America. They spill quietly, devastatingly onto African soil, packed into shipping containers and sold in open-air markets under the guise of “donations.” But from Accra to Kigali, Dakar to Lusaka, something is shifting. The bales keep arriving. The markets keep choking. But across the continent, a patchwork […]

Dakar Sound Project: How Senegal’s Youth Are Remixing Fashion, Music, and Memory

Two men in vibrant, stylish West African streetwear posing with a trumpet in a sunlit Dakar alleyway. One man wears a mustard yellow patterned suit while the other is in a light-colored outfit with a bold orange patterned wrap, capturing the fusion of jazz music and contemporary Senegalese fashion.

Photographer Khaled Fhemy Mamah and stylist Hélène Redolfi created Dakar Sound Project to document how the city’s music culture shows up in what people wear. Shot at Maison de la Culture Urbaine, Torobee Distribution (a vinyl archive), and across Dakar’s streets, the editorial pairs models with instruments—saxophones, trumpets, synthesizers—and clothes from local designers working in […]

The Designer Turning Senegal’s Waste Crisis into a Luxury Brand

The Designer Turning Senegal's Waste Crisis into a Luxury Brand WhatsApp Image 2025 07 13 at 11.33.03 1 1 e1752654647951

Designer Moctar Ba transforms discarded materials into premium accessories while proving sustainability can drive African luxury In his Dakar workshop, Moctar Ba holds up a vibrant advertising banner that once promoted a telecom company across Senegal’s capital. Within weeks, it will become a €250 backpack sold to customers in Paris and Brussels. This transformation from […]

Kakinbow Is Aboubacarim Ndaw’s Second Act—And It Sounds Like a Revolution

Kakinbow Is Aboubacarim Ndaw’s Second Act—And It Sounds Like a Revolution 2 jalaba poncho 1

In Ouakam, a seaside neighborhood in Dakar where the Atlantic wind carries stories from centuries past, a quiet revolution is unfolding. Not in protests or politics—but in fabric, form, and rhythm. Tucked into a side street, far from the chaos of car horns and vendors, sits a boutique with no neon signs, no loud displays—just […]

Modou Gueye: The Mats of My Childhood as Diasporic Ritual and Visual Reclamation

Modou Gueye: The Mats of My Childhood as Diasporic Ritual and Visual Reclamation 1

Some artists paint what they see. Modou Gueye paints what stays with him. Born in 1990 in Pikine, Senegal, and now living between Dakar and Barcelona, Gueye creates from a place where memory meets ritual, and where the ordinary is reborn as sacred. His work doesn’t seek to explain, it seeks to remember. Not with […]

How Naëtt Mbaye Is Building a Language of Film, Flesh, and Feeling

How Naëtt Mbaye Is Building a Language of Film, Flesh, and Feeling naett

  Naëtt Mbaye isn’t interested in categories. Not in art, not in identity, and definitely not in career paths. She’s worked as a producer for Chanel, styled shoots at WAD Magazine, and shot analog portraits that feel more like memory than documentation. She’s also acted, written scripts, and quietly made her mark as one of […]

The Sovereign Note: When We See Us in Minor Keys

The Sovereign Note: When We See Us in Minor Keys 1TREVOR STUURMAN ftcms 5055907d b83f 4f1c 848a 6d11f0f80fca

There are women who walk into a room and shift its temperature. Not with volume or flash, but with presence — that quiet, calibrated command that makes the air feel more intentional. Koyo Kouoh was one of those women. She moved like meaning. She spoke with tempo. She walked as if she were carrying a […]

Luxury Dreams, Local Struggles: The Price of African Fashion Today

Luxury Dreams, Local Struggles: The Price of African Fashion Today IMG 8378 1

African fashion has been experiencing a delightful renaissance. From Lagos to Abidjan, Dakar to Nairobi, designers are capturing global attention with their creativity, craftsmanship, and cultural storytelling. But beneath the glamour, many African consumers are voicing a growing concern: the escalating cost of homegrown fashion is driving them out of the market. As inflation and […]

Style Is Life: Reframing Africa Through the Sartorial Lens of Daniele Tamagni

Style Is Life: Reframing Africa Through the Sartorial Lens of Daniele Tamagni 1

In Dakar, where the past and future often collide in radiant defiance, Style is Life opened not just as an exhibition, but as a declaration. A necessary reframing of how Africa is seen, styled, and storied—through the radical lens of the late Daniele Tamagni. Here, fashion becomes more than fabric. It becomes language. Protest. Memory. […]