Fashion Helps Shape African Cultural Renaissance | Modern news

Fashion in Africa is as diverse and creative as the continent. Now, with the largest part of the continent’s largest fashion exhibition in the UK to date, many talented designers, models, photographers, designers, makeup artists and other professionals are in Africa.

“Africa Fashion” until April 2023 at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London will celebrate “the unimaginable creativity, ingenuity and unstoppable global impact of modern African fashion” in 45-plus countries through the lens of 20-plus countries. According to the statement.

By the middle of the 20th century, some of Africa’s most famous designers, including Nigerian fascist Shade Thomas-Fahm, had exhibited more than 250 items, including personal costumes. Chris Sedu “Father of African Fashion”; Ghanaian creator Kofi Ansah; And Alfadi, the “desert magician” to name a few.

With photographs, video recordings, editorial broadcasts, designs and other artifacts, the exhibition will tell the stories of more contemporary designers and creators such as Iman Akisi, Imsigo, Motion, Tebe Magugu and Cindiso Kumalo. An attractive Maison ArtC has designed a new work for the exhibition title Conversation between cultures.

According to Christine Chechinska, curator of African and African Diaspora textiles and textiles at the museum, fashion from Africa is the main theme of the exhibition, but the show is much deeper. Fashion.

From the time of African independence in the 1950s to the mid-1990s, the exhibition explored the role of art and music in the fashion of the continent’s cultural renaissance. It also explores how social media, digital technology and celebrities have helped bring African fashion to a wider and more global audience in recent years.

”[African designers] The language of fashion is changing. ” Artnet“The fashion world is turning to Africa, and African creators are doing things their own way.”

The history of V&A, founded in 1852, is closely linked to British colonialism throughout Africa. Colonialists stole valuable artifacts from African communities – in the museum collection and other famous British museum collections. For example, during the British invasion of Ethiopia in 1868, they looted Magdala’s treasures.

Broadly speaking, African invention is often “not included or misrepresented in the museum, due to the historical divide and racist assumptions between our colonial and art museums,” Checinska told Agence France-Presse. But Lauren Cochran b GuardThe exhibition can be considered as part of a broader effort to recognize these stories and bring different voices to the institution.

Chesinska agrees, the exhibition is long overdue. The museum staff spent two years consulting with designers, foreign experts, African Diaspora youth, and generations of community members to ensure that the fair was a success.

“In general, it is a time of transition that demonstrates our commitment to Africa’s creativity,” Chechinska said. Guard.

”African FashionIt will be on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum until April 16, 2023.