How Colonial Morality Still Polices African Fashion

How Colonial Morality Still Polices African Fashion FLY02238

How Colonial Morality Still Polices African Fashion Akamba Warrior (Kenya): Image No. 10768. Courtesy of Penn Museum Archives. Before colonial rule, most communities wore practical, hand-made garments: woven cotton wrappers in West Africa; smocks and robes for traders and farmers; leather and beadwork in parts of the Sahel and southern Africa; wool and barkcloth where […]

Inside the Rise of Africa’s Skateboarding Culture

Inside the Rise of Africa’s Skateboarding Culture Ethiopian Ladies Skate Team

In Kampala, in a neighborhood called Kitintale, a half-pipe rises from the red earth. It is not polished concrete poured by a city planner or a glossy installation by a global sports brand. It is a handmade monument, built nearly twenty years ago by Jackson Mubiru, who believed Uganda’s children needed a place to roll, […]

Sindiso Khumalo Debuts Flagship Store in Cape Town as a Love Letter to African Craft

Sindiso Khumalo Debuts Flagship Store in Cape Town as a Love Letter to African Craft Sindiso Khumalo Portrait 1

There are many facets to Sindiso Khumalo: She is, foremost, a designer whose textiles are instantly recognizable for their bold colors and hand-drawn prints. She is a storyteller who weaves African and Black history into contemporary fashion, creating a compelling bridge between different eras of design. Beyond that, she is an architect by training, an […]

What Makes a Brand African? Rethinking Made in Africa Fashion

What Makes a Brand African? Rethinking Made in Africa Fashion IMG 9727

While African fashion has reached greater heights—the question of what makes a brand “African” resists easy answers. It can’t be answered through surface-level aesthetics or generic motifs, but instead, it demands a deeper interrogation of history, structure, and power. At first glance, one might say an African brand is one founded or designed by an […]

Legacy African Fashion Houses That Defined the Continent’s Style Future

Legacy African Fashion Houses That Defined the Continent’s Style Future 506CD287 D2ED 4EE5 A363 6EB3F23C3515 L0 001 7 18 2025 12 00 13 AM

Fashion across the continent has always been rooted in craftsmanship, talent, and boundless creativity—and nowhere is that more evident than in the pioneering legacy houses that rose to prominence from the 1980s onward. These houses wove an African narrative that resisted reductive stereotypes and demanded global recognition for its innovation and cultural depth. Their ateliers […]

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 […]