Threads of Influence VI: The 2025 Met Gala Host Committee – Tailored Bold
The 2025 Met Gala’s “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” celebrates Black dandyism—a legacy of elegance, resistance, and identity that Guzangs has traced across centuries in its Threads of Influence series. From pre-colonial African regalia to modern-day suits steeped in story, this theme lands squarely in our archive. Beyond co-chairs Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky, Pharrell […]
Inside Éki Kéré: The Brand Reclaiming Raffia, Masquerade, and Meaning
In an industry obsessed with velocity: new drops, new aesthetics, the endless sprint for the next big thing—Abasiekeme Ukanireh dares to move differently. She has become one of the most sought-after designers on the continent, renowned for her exquisite craftsmanship that blends vernacular materials and transforms the mundane into the extraordinary. As evident as it […]
Threads of Influence V: Met Gala Co-Chairs in Focus
The 2025 Met Gala isn’t just a red carpet — it’s a cultural reckoning. With the Costume Institute’s theme, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” this year’s gala centers the sartorial legacy of Black men across the diaspora: from Harlem dapper to Savile Row rebels, Zoot suits to modern minimalism. It’s about how Black style — rooted […]
Threads of Influence IV: The Elegance of Defiance
The art of tailoring has long been a site of Black resistance, elegance, and reinvention. From the studied poise of precolonial kings to the audacious flamboyance of the Sapeurs, tailoring has shaped how the world sees Black style — and how Black people see themselves. The 2025 Met Gala theme, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, affirms […]
The Future Feels Different Here: 7 African creatives who are reshaping design on their own terms
On April 21, the UN observed World Creativity and Innovation Day. But for many African designers, artists, and architects, that kind of thinking isn’t tied to a calendar. It’s just how the work gets done. Across the continent, new ideas are taking shape. Quietly. Experimentally. Sometimes defiantly. Some are working with buildings left unfinished for […]
The Power of the Collective: Artisans Behind the Runway
In Ghana’s Bonwire village, kente weavers thread vibrant narratives into silk-cotton cloth. In Ethiopia’s Amhara region, women’s cooperatives spin cotton into minimalist elegance. In South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal, Zulu beadworkers craft intricate patterns. In Mali’s Bamako region, indigo dyers create mud-dyed bogolanfini. In Kenya’s Kitui County, the Shalom Pride community weaves raffia into sustainable basket bags. […]
Threads of Influence III: The Sapeurs of Congo
Before a Sapeur steps into the street, the decision has already been made: to show up in the world not just dressed, but composed. Every detail is deliberate—the texture of the suit, the weight of a cane, the tilt of a hat. It’s a ritual of style, but also a quiet refusal. Because in Brazzaville […]
Earth’s Palette: African Designers Crafting Ultra-Sustainable Fashion with Natural Dyes
As Earth Day 2025 dawns under the theme “Our Power, Our Planet,” African fashion is blooming with colors drawn straight from the earth. Forget fast fashion’s toxic legacy—20% of global wastewater and 10% of CO2 emissions. An Adire dress steeped in Yoruba indigo, a Kente gown dyed with Ghanaian kola nut, or a recycled denim […]
Threads of Influence II: Colonial Dandyism and the Politics of Dress
From the late 19th to mid-20th centuries, as European colonial powers carved up Africa, a sartorial uprising simmered beneath the surface. In the shadow of Union Jacks, tricolores, and Belgian crowns, African men—across Lagos’s humid docks, Accra’s dusty streets, Leopoldville’s riverfront markets—took the European suit, that rigid emblem of imperial control, and stitched it into […]
Kuza Africa: Building the Future of Fashion from Kigali Outward
In 2022, three Rwandan visionaries—Bruce Sakindi (Lead, Sales), Grace Ussenge (Lead, Operations), and Maximilien Kolbe (Lead, Strategy)—came together with one unshakable belief: Africa’s creative future deserved more. More opportunity. More visibility. More support. With that conviction, they founded Kuza Africa, a platform designed to bridge the gap between untapped creative talent and the tools, networks, […]