African Fashion: Dressing the Body and Living Fashion
This issue of A&M addresses the ever-changing and innovative topic of fashion, rejecting the cliché that sees Africa as “static” and “traditional”. It contradicts the image of repetitive societies which have produced and used clothing in the same way for centuries, and rejects the image of fashion as a purely Western phenomenon.
The breadth of this issue of A&M can be understood through a brief outline of some of the topics discussed:
– The “tiresome tastes of African women”, about which European merchants complained in colonial times;
– The history of the economic and political relations of the continent with Europe and the rest of the world, viewed through the history of wax prints;
– The liberation of the body through women’s clothing in Dakar;
– The incorporation of memory and the past in the clothing produced by South African designers; – High fashion in West Africa and South Africa, worn by important Western politicians and media personalities;
– The function of clothing in Voodoo rituals;
– The phenomenon of the African dandies: the sapeurs who collaborate with French fashion houses and who are perceived as a kind of fashion aristocracy.
This issue is edited by Giovanna Parodi da Passano, and features contributions from academics specializing in fashion and historians on Africa, as well as artists and operators in the sector.
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