NYFW SS26 Trends to Watch and How They Could Translate in Lagos and Dakar

NYFW SS26 Trends to Watch and How They Could Translate in Lagos and Dakar IMG 2479

New York set the tone this month—craft got louder, tailoring relaxed, and street codes sharpened. With Lagos Fashion Week locked for Oct 29–Nov 2, 2025 and Dakar Fashion Week slated for Dec 3–7, 2025, here’s what emerged from NYFW and how it might translate on the continent in the coming weeks. Craft with muscle (Diotima) […]

Big Four vs Africa: Fashion Week’s Contrasting Realities

Big Four vs Africa: Fashion Week’s Contrasting Realities BAR 300 1

Fashion weeks have always been about more than the clothes. Yes, they’re displays of style, but they’re also where global trends are born, where billions of dollars change hands, and where designers make statements that ripple far beyond the runway. A single collection can spark conversations about politics, identity, or sustainability. In Lagos or Paris, […]

How African Music Conquered the World (and Why It’s Just Getting Started)

Nigerian artist Burna Boy on stage at Untold Festival, August 2024, pointing to the crowd during a global performance.

  African music has always transcended mere sound. It is memory incarnate, ritual transformed into rhythm, protest given voice, and joy made manifest—a living pulse that carries history from one generation to the next. Over centuries, that pulse has traveled across oceans, first carried by force through slavery, later shared by choice through cultural exchange. […]

Everyday Couture: Why Africa’s True Fashion Houses Sit on the Streets

Everyday Couture: Why Africa's True Fashion Houses Sit on the Streets Fundi wa nguo mwanamke

  Growing up in Africa, you feel the streets’ pulse long before you ever hear of Paris runways. On crowded roads where roasted plantain and petrol fumes mingle, a tailor’s shop hums with life. It’s a tiny space, bursting with wax prints, bogolan, kente, and lace — colors popping like a festival. A sewing machine […]

WORN OUT — Part III: Return to Sender

WORN OUT — Part III: Return to Sender 00B98278 8E2A 464A AEB5 00079418D650

How African Designers Are Reclaiming Waste and Rewriting Fashion’s Future The bales arrive as they always have — compressed, labeled, shipped across oceans like cargo without conscience. They still overwhelm ports and markets, a visible symptom of a system that hasn’t stopped. But something has shifted in how they’re received. Across Accra, Cairo, Dakar, workshops […]

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 […]