This is why the buzz about African fashion might not be another blip

After news of Maxhosa’s first international store in New York’s Soho district, the SA luxury brand took to France for its Paris Fashion Week debut last weekend. It’s the only SA brand to make the official schedule. 

Describing the Autumn 2024 ready-to-wear collection and showcase as a “cultural event”, founder Laduma Ngxokolo ticked off the dream of taking his brand to the French capital, and looks poised to build on the global momentum his brand, and several others from the continent, are experiencing. 

Like his counterparts who have showcased on the main schedules or the fringes of global fashion week platforms, Ngxokolo sought to showcase the modernity of contemporary African fashion, and how it can be “sexy,” according to one report from Vogue Runway. 

If the news cycle is anything to go by, African fashion is once again on the verge of a global breakthrough. The Maxhosa coverage indicates a continued interest in global African fashion; one that seems to have intensified postpandemic. “How Luxury African Fashion Has Wowed Europe’s Catwalks”, BBC reported from the sidelines of Paris Fashion Week. Other reports proclaimed how African designers have “burst onto the global fashion scene”.

“New York, New York,” wrote a local outlet on the news that Ngxokolo’s Maxhosa would be opening a store in the Big Apple. “Merchants on Long Connects Luxury African Fashion and Design with a Global Audience,” read a recent post from Glamour Magazine. Of course, you will be familiar with how designers such as Thebe Magugu have been elevated to virtual celebrity status over the years since winning the LVMH prize. 

General coverage of African fashion has seen Vogue celebrating the likes of Ghanaian visual artist Prince Gyasi, SA’s Trevor Stuurman, Nigeria’s Stephen Tayo and Senegal’s Malick Bodian, among others. Countless more pieces all over the internet purport to cover African fashion’s imminent rise to global repute. Goingback a decade, it is clear this has been the case for a long time. It’s nothing new, and yet, with every new piece, we are led to believe that Africa’s time is now, or coming, or whatever. Disclaimer: Having covered fashion for close to a decade, I’m also guilty of playing into that, so the question is, does it feel different now, and why?

Hard work

I’ve come to dislike this type of framing because it puts so much unnecessary pressure on individual designers. However, this time I’m inclined to not dismiss the current buzz about African fashion as a blip.

As images trickle in after Maxhosa’s Autumn 2024 ready-to-wear show, it’s worth looking into why the buzz the brand is receiving builds on years of hard work and the moment in which it finds itself. Often when a local designer showcases overseas, we don’t talk about their schedule programming (whether main, fringe or off-schedule), what publicity they are getting in that territory and what conversation is happening culturally. 

Yes, it’s awesome when a Hollywood celebrity wears an African brand; that’s exposure the brand probably can’t afford. It’s also very important when they showcase at a Milan, Paris or London Fashion Week, but it’s not much of a “burst” for the wider industry when these moments happen in isolation. I would argue it has historically been the case despite awesome headlines that would have us believe that we’ve arrived.

There’s a continuing trend towards global interest in African culture that goes beyond fashion. We see it mostly in music, where African artists have broken through to the global mainstream — Tyla, Burna Boy, Tems, Rema, Wizkid, Amaaarae, CKay, and many more. It’s not new for African artists to appear on the Billboard music charts and win Grammys. The likes of the late Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela, Cameroon’s Manu Dibango, Ladysmith Black Mambazo are shining examples of this but there’s no denying that it is happening far more frequently lately. 

In food, the continent’s largely untapped cuisine traditions are gaining global appeal with West African food specifically becoming a major trend. As far back as 2020, American retailer Whole Foods included West African flavour in its top 10 trends, citing New York-based, Senegal-raised chef Pierre Thiam’s popularisation of these cuisines through fine dining. 

For several years, I’ve firmly believed that the Western world has very little that is new to offer. It’s the global South that we can still learn from, especially at a time when our traditions — and the move to propel them into the future — are so compatible with sustainability and the values that younger consumers are demanding of brands and industries across the board. 

So, no, this is not a blip. It’s a shift. It’s going to be interesting observing how the coverage of African fashion develops as our designers continue to establish their brands on the global stage, at a time when the continent is rising in other aspects of mainstream culture.