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 […]

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

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 […]