Africa Grows the Cotton. A Dakar Gathering Asks Who Profits.
The most important fashion event in Dakar this year had less to do with fashion than with industry. For three days in March, the Centre des Expositions de Diamniadio drew manufacturers, policymakers, textile producers, leather experts, investors, designers, entrepreneurs and development partners from across Africa and beyond, gathered for the inaugural Africa Sourcing & Fashion […]
After the Applause: Heritage Textiles and the Economics of the Runway Moment
Florentina Agu went back to the wood carving workshops she had visited as a child, and many of the artisans her family had once worked with were dead. The ones still alive were in difficult circumstances. Agu’s father had run a wood carving studio in Nigeria that produced parquet flooring and carved objects for sale […]
At BAKUS ORAYA, Cotton in Its Final State
BAKUS ORAYA is the kind of house that builds its identity by what it leaves out. Since founding the label, Abdoul Manane Bakary has approached fabric as origin rather than ornament, and Coton Brut, the collection he has been refining across multiple shows, has been the long case for that position. The final chapter, presented […]
Huguette Tchiapi’s Debut Begins in Yaoundé
Huguette Tchiapi is continuing an existing convergence, building a fashion brand that brings together the intricacies of her Cameroonian roots and the influence of her British identity. Like most emerging designers, she is deliberate about where her ideas come from. She speaks about influence less as something simply absorbed and more as something that can […]
Nigerian Women Are Dressing Against the Code
Two decades ago, Y2K marked one of the most expressive moments in Nigerian fashion, shaped by the rise of internet culture and the influence of Nollywood. Visibility, then, felt intentional and confident rather than excessive. A version of that sensibility has returned, carried by a generation that dresses for how it wants to feel rather […]
Understanding Bògòlanfini: The Malian Textile Written in Mud and Cotton
Bògòlanfini, the mud cloth of Mali, is one of Africa’s oldest living textile traditions. Ugonna-Ora Owoh traces its science, symbolism, and migration — from Bamana villages and the Mali Empire to Chris Seydou’s Paris ateliers and Awa Meïté’s contemporary Bamako-based practice.
Who Trains the Machines That See Africa?
The Sovereign Stack
As AI becomes the infrastructure beneath culture, African creators can no longer
Woven Stories: 9 African Artists Shaping Contemporary Narratives Through Textiles
Textiles are more than material. They hold stories, histories and languages shaped through time. I think of them
Cotonou Knows Exactly What It’s Doing
Cotonou Knows Exactly What It’s Doing Amazone Statue, Cotonou, Benin. Photo: Présidence du Bénin. Every West African knows Cotonou, whether or not they have ever stopped to think about why. The auntie who goes for fabric knows it. The trader who crosses the border from Nigeria knows it. The goods that show up in Lagos […]
Guinea: A Textile Civilization in Four Systems
Guinea: A Textile Civilization in Four Systems By Mariama Camara & Oury Sene King of Kindia, c.1910, with two wives in Basse-Guinée textiles (tie-dye, weaving, embroidery). Courtesy of Duncan Clarke, antique postcard and African textile dealer. Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is rarely understood through its material systems. It is more often described through […]