The Rise of African Fashion

When I heard Africa, I imagined beautiful wildlife, nice warm weather, and a very cultural type of lifestyle.

Fashion designers viewed Africa as an area with“street style and trends that have been largely ignored by western media outlets”. Now Africa is on the rise and exposing the public to new styles such as motifs, prints, and textiles.

www.afrikanspot.com

“Both established and aspiring African designers are reaping the rewards of a reinvigorated fashion industry in Africa. Smaller and traditional African accessories and textile artisans, commonly associated with curios sold at tourist markets in Africa, are finding their own niche in the industry by joining efforts with established companies in the west. These collaborations are termed ‘ethical fashion,’ a term used to describe “the design, production and retail and purchasing of items. It covers a range of issues such as pay and working conditions, fair trade, sustainable production, the environment and animal welfare.””

Africa is developing small businesses and shops are being recognized globally because people want something new and exciting to wear for the new big fashion change in the future era.

Will African Styles be worn by people like us?

Why do you think “ethical fashion” is becoming popular?

The East African fashion industry’s annual highlight is the Swahili Fashion Week, an event described as “a fast growing platform for fashion and accessory designers from Swahili speaking countries and the African continent to showcase their talent, market their creativity and network with clientele and international fashion industry.”(5) Nigeria also hosted two major fashion events, Nigeria Fashion Week and MTN’s Lagos Fashion and Design Week.  MTN, Africa’s leading telecommunication company, collaborated with the fashion industry in Lagos to host this event, which brought together media agencies, industry agents, buyers and consumers to view the current collections of designers in Lagos

zenmagazineafrica.com

Not only are people getting more interested in Africa’s fashion but they are now so popular they are hosting many of the world’s biggest fashion shows which are shows to introduce the new and upcoming styles and trends.

Since Africa’s fashion is more popular, will more African models be given jobs?

Will the average of African models to USA models go up?

This article is kind of biased because this is only one person’s opinion of how African fashion has developed but compared to the U.S it hasn’t developed very much throughout all its years. The country has just started to Modernize now!!