Africa: The Fashion Continent

Description

From the runway in Lagos and the Afropunk festival in Johannesburg, to the "image makers" of Marrakech and the influencers of Dakar or Accra, a new generation of African fashion designers, photographers, bloggers, and artists are redefining the aesthetic contours of the continent. Audacious, humorous, disruptive, and innovative are the bywords of these young creatives who, while drawing upon and revalorizing their heritage, offer an ultra-contemporary new perspective. The revolutionary designers-from Senegal to Nigeria to South Africa-are reinventing their textile and historical traditions: bazin fabrics blend with plastics, stretch gives body to woven cloth, mesh beading inspires knitwear designs, and the traditional adire print-championed by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Michelle Obama-embellishes silk dresses and pencil skirts. Body-artists transform their face or hair into an ambulant social manifesto, and photographers-using clothing and accessories-shed new light onto questions of identity, gender, and color. This volume celebrates a creative, effervescent generation, which-by breaking the rules and rewriting the narrative of the African continent-is inventing a new and resolutely African chapter in the history of fashion that is now resonating across the globe.

Emmanuelle Courreges has contributed to magazines including Elle, Marie-Claire, l'Express Styles, and Vogue Italia. She was born and raised in western Africa (Cameroon, Senegal, and the Ivory Coast), where she lived for twenty years. She founded LAGO54, a platform that supports and promotes contemporary African fashion designers in France.

"Her thoughtful, beautiful new book, Africa: The Fashion Continent (Flammarion), invites readers to explore the complex landscape of contemporary African fashion-each chapter spotlights boundary-pushing designers and artisans, savvy boutique owners, photographers, stylists, and young creatives who are each coming up with their own versions of what "African fashion" means, and spearheading a movement that Courreges compares to the Swinging '60s in London. . . The book is a timely project, given the fact that designers from various African countries are beginning to gain global recognition: South African designers Thebe Magugu and Sindiso Khumalo have both been awarded the LVMH prize, Cameroonian designer Imane Ayissi is on the official Haute Couture calendar, and Nigerians Kenneth Ize and Maki Oh show at Paris and New York fashion weeks, respectively. But as Courreges writes in the book, even with increased visibility, African fashion 'remains incomprehensible for many.'" -W MAGAZIE