Buy Less, Love More: Onata Haus Launches an African-Led Conscious Revolution in Lagos
Buy Less, Love More: Onata Haus Launches an African-Led Conscious Revolution in Lagos Onata Haus Campaign Photographed by Stephen Tayo Lagos, Nigeria — The runway begins where the sand ends. On a private beach in Ilashe, far from the city’s honking chaos, Onata Haus unveiled its vision Monday night: 30 looks drifting past sculptures forged […]
What Defined Lagos Fashion Week SS26? These 10 Trends
Lagos Fashion Week didn’t try to prove anything this season—it showed up with confidence. Over five days, designers presented collections that felt intentional, each show adding to a broader conversation about what African fashion looks like when it stops seeking validation and starts setting its own terms. Here are the ten trends that defined Spring/Summer […]
Lagos Fashion Week 2025: A Final Recap
Lagos Fashion Week’s fifteenth-anniversary edition delivered on its promise to position the city as a serious fashion capital. Over five days, more than fifty designers presented
Lagos Fashion Week: All the Highlights from Day Five
Over the last four days, more than fifty African designers have showcased on the runway, presenting functional
Hortense Mbea of AFROPIAN: The Fashion Griot
Hortense Mbea of AFROPIAN: The Fashion Griot Hortense Mbea, founder of Afropian Hortense Mbea moves through the world as if every gesture were a prayer. Every fold of fabric, every hand-stitched seam, every bead threaded with care carries a story—a word, a sentence, a chapter in Africa’s vast and unending book. Born and raised abroad, […]
How Colonial Morality Still Polices African Fashion
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 […]
Homegrown to High Fashion: African Musicians’ Style Journey and Cultural Pride
African musicians have long used fashion to reflect their cultural roots and global ambitions. In the early 2000s, as genres like Afrobeats gained momentum, artists championed local designers, wearing traditional fabrics like kente, adire, and kitenge to celebrate heritage and support homegrown talent. As their fame crossed borders, many embraced Western luxury brands like Louis […]
Woven Histories: Hair in North Africa
Hair across Africa has never been a mere accessory. It has long functioned as a living archive, carrying messages of lineage, spirituality, and social status. In every braid and parting, identity is inscribed. Today, conversations around African hair have widened beyond what past generations could have imagined. On Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, hairstylists, cultural historians, […]
Inside Ifebuche Madu’s Exhibition of Nigerian Textile and Traditional Dye
Ifebuche Madu believes fashion storytelling must move beyond surface optics, and it’s what led her deeper into curating “In the Beginning, There Was Cloth”—a textile exhibition that brings this truth to the fore, tracing the layered narratives woven into Adire, Akwete, and Uli. “It is a journey that takes us back to our ancient times […]
Imported Treasures: Kwasi Paul’s Vision of Diasporic Style
There’s a particular kind of confidence that comes from wearing something made with intention—clothing that carries weight beyond its fabric. Kwasi Paul’s latest collection, “Imported Treasures,” understands this implicitly. Founded in 2020 by Samuel Boakye, a first-generation Ghanaian-American, the brand has built its reputation on creating menswear and womenswear that refuses to choose between tradition […]