As always, social media is reheating its own nachos. This time it’s over a $3,000 “Ghana Must Go” Louis Vuitton bag that appeared on the resale market and caused a stir across social media. With an original retail price of $595 (according to some reports), the woven bag with red, blue and white checks is a luxury interpretation of the plastic “Ghana Must Go” bags most South Africans recognise as the “Mashangane”, “Mas’goduke”, or “No Problem” bags, among other names.
It has a rich history both here and in West Africa, where it became synonymous with the Nigerian expulsion of Ghanaian immigrants back in the 1980s (hence the name), in spite of the fact that it’s a design that traces its origins in Asia. Still, there is no denying that these are symbols tied to often painful histories that eventually become part of our cultural heritage.
But the Louis Vuitton version is not new and has often, and perhaps rightfully, come up in debates around cultural appropriation in the ensuing years since its runway debut during Marc Jacobs’ tenure at Louis Vuitton in the late 2000s.
While this and other instances where big luxury has borrowed from, and capitalised on, heritage motifs from the Global South, often without properly crediting or even acknowledging the source, I find it quite disappointing that the power of social media is often wasted on litigating cultural appropriation and invariably showering luxury conglomerates with even more attention.
This happens at the expense of African designers who are doing the work of transforming our heritage symbols into luxury, often to the benefit of the communities that these heritage symbols come from. It seems to me that cultural commentators and social media talking heads alike are more invested in the engagement that comes with such controversies than they are in expanding narratives from right here at home.
Beyond inspiring outrage, very rarely do we take this as an opportunity to talk about what is happening in design on the continent, so let’s rather turn our attention to designers who are reclaiming our heritage symbols in interesting ways.
Lisa Folawiyo (Nigeria)
Lisa Folawiyo has used Ankara textiles since founding her eponymous line in 2005. She’s known for transforming Ankara through handcrafted beaded and sequined embellishments and creating prints that reference her Nigerian and Trinidadian background. A recent collection, titled “The Starting Line”, leaned into indigenous games such as the Ayò board game for print inspiration, and continued her trademark detail work. Her work is not about exoticism, but specificity. It is heritage-rendered contemporary fashion at its finest.
Thebe Magugu (SA)
Thebe Magugu leans into heritage using visuals and symbols from nine SA cultures (Zulu, Xhosa, Swati, Pedi, Tswana, Venda, Tsonga, Sotho, Ndebele) to explore traditions such as lobola, the role of women in society, ritual and family. In his “Mother & Child” motif, he draws from familial memories such as women carrying loads or children, field work and rituals, designing clothing that transforms cultural narratives into luxury style that has won the designer acclaim on a global scale.
Kente Gentlemen (by Aristide Loua, Ivory Coast)
Founded in 2017, Kente Gentlemen is led by Aristide Loua. The brand centres on Kente cloth (hand-woven fabrics from Ghana and Ivory Coast) and local craft, using them in suiting and contemporary womenswear. For Spring 2025, Kente Gentlemen’s Lagos Fashion Week show only lightly touched on Kente cloth, instead expanding its narrative with lighter fabrics such as linen, denim and lace, but still grounding its identity in the crafts and materials of West Africa.
Lagos Space Programme (Adeju Thompson, Nigeria)
Launched in 2018, Lagos Space Programme is explicitly about bridging Yoruba heritage, traditional techniques such as adire (indigo resist-dye design) and contemporary futurisms. The brand’s winning of the 2023 International Woolmark Prize recognised precisely this blend of heritage textile, ethical production, craft, and narrative. Their collections use “post-Adire” (reimagined resist-dye) patterns, handcrafted brass hardware, local beadwork and more.
These designers are not merely responding to what looks good for the camera. Their work emerges from lived experiences such as family rituals and textiles worn by their mothers and grandmothers, as well as local artisanship. It’s work that comes from a sense of responsibility to preserve and evolve heritage. They are asking questions about the ownership of narratives, as well as who should be profiting from these symbols of our culture. They tend to produce locally, employing local artisans, and keep cultural context alive.
While social media often recycles outrage at luxury firms reusing symbols, these designers are already building durable identities and brands that people can buy into. It’s not just aesthetics, but ethics, authenticity and community.
