African Fashion exhibit wows at London’s South Kensington’s Victoria and Albert Museum

With inventive, angular silhouettes, moments of sartorial celebration in the form of fringe and batik, and larger-than-life maximalist interpretations of global trends, the Africa Fashion exhibit at the South Kensington Victoria and Albert Museum in London brings the finest in design to an international audience. The exhibit opened this summer, and the tableaus populating the gallery range in subject from mid-century pioneers who first brought African fashion to a global audience during the post-colonial cultural renaissance to the most cutting-edge and up-to-date trendsetters, designers, photographers and collectives taking the region by storm.

With cultural memory woven into the very fibers, fabric, in all its various patterns, textures and usages, is given a spotlight in the section entitled The Politics and Poetics of Cloth. An interplay between African healing traditions and Afrofuturism comes together in the Afrotopia section, which features a collaboration between healer and stylist Noentla Khumalo and South African fashion brand Thebe Magugu from their Alchemy collection. In Sartorialists, designer, stylist, and photographer Gouled Ahmed calls attention to the nuanced experiences of non-binary Black Muslims with an interplay between traditional cultural styles from the Horn of Africa and everyday objects elevated to the level of mystique.

In addition to the thoughtfully curated displays, a programming series that features workshops on cloth-making, adornments, basic design principles, musical performances and artist talks enhances the interactivity of the exhibit. A digital tour makes the best of the works accessible even from home and an upcoming conference based on the exhibit gives cultural workers who focus on African fashion a platform to share their ideas.