Africa Fashion at the Brooklyn Museum: A Celebration of Style and Culture

A Celebration of African Creativity

The highly anticipated Africa Fashion exhibit is now at the Brooklyn Museum, examining the continents significant contributions to fashion and textiles from the mid-20th century to the present day, through the lenses of popular culture, art, and politics․ The exhibit, open through October 22, shows the continents long-standing involvement to haute couture, sustainability, and technology, all of which have been deeply embedded into the creative practices of African artists․

A Journey Through Time and Style

The layout is organized thematically by moments in African history that helped to define the continent creatively, including the Independence era (1950s-1990s), a catalyst for Africa's cultural renaissance․ The exhibition is supplemented by immersive displays of film footage, runway shows, vintage magazines and books, music, and more, in collaboration with more than 40 designers and artists across 20 African countries, some of them for the first time in North America․ As you enter the Vanguard portion of the exhibit, on display are skillfully crafted floor-length capes, robes, and gowns by the continents first generation of premiers designers who specialize in crafting made-to-measure clothes and couture including Naïma Bennis of Morocco, Kofi Ansah of Ghana, Chris Seydou of Mali, Shade Thomas-Fahm of Nigeria, and Alphadi of Niger․ Shown is a diversity of textiles from across Africa, including the Kuba raffia cloth and the Nigerian Akwete cloth․ Kente cloth designs and commemorative pieces feature portraits of African political figures such as Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama printed onto textiles, highlighting the notion of dress as a political act․ The exhibit also highlights Africa's new guard of designers, like Thebe Magugu, Adebayo Oke-Lawal, and jewelry designs by Lafalaise Dion that explore the legacy of the popular cowrie shell․

The Vanguard of African Fashion

The first generation of African designers to gain global attention is highlighted in the Vanguard section․ Works by Kofi Ansah (Ghana), Naima Bennis (Morocco), Shade Thomas-Fahm (Nigeria), Chris Seydou (Mali), and Alphadi (Niger), dating from the mid to late twentieth century, are shown together for the first time in the United States alongside a dynamic installation of fashion photography from the period․ The Brooklyn Museum presentation of Africa Fashion is organized by Ernestine White-Mifetu, Sills Foundation Curator of African Art, and Annissa Malvoisin, Bard Graduate Center / Brooklyn Museum Postdoctoral Fellow in the Arts of Africa, with Catherine Futter, Director of Curatorial Affairs and Senior Curator of Decorative Arts, and Matthew Yokobosky, Senior Curator of Fashion and Material ․․․

The Legacy of African Textiles

Mastering a skill takes 10,000 hours, it's said, so imagine the knowledge passed from mother to daughter, father to son, when the application of those skills is measured not in hours but generations of ․․․ A man would come into the store looking forgettable and then, after donning a well-cut two-button, single-breasted navy suit with a peak lapel, he would look accomplished, adept․ Walking into the new Africa Fashion exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, I felt that I was witnessing something․․․ 7 июн․ 2015 г․ Fashion Show⁚ Afrika21 The Brooklyn Museum — African Prints in Fashion․ Now another post about the Afrika21 event at Brooklyn Museum, as there ․․․ The Africa Fashion exhibition opens at the Brooklyn Museum this week with an extraordinary offering of works from the continent over the past 70 years․ As many African nations gained independence in the mid-20th century, a liberated artistic expression took the nation by storm and has only strengthened since․

The Global Impact of African Fashion

The exhibit raises an essential point about the global interconnectivity shared between Europe and Asia through materials․ It underscores how things we associate with fashion in the West, like haute couture, have always been deeply embedded into the creative practice of African artists․ To complete the experience, the museum even teamed up with ALÁRA, a Lagos-based lifestyle-concept store, to sell souvenirs, clothes, books, and other unique takeaways to reflect the exhibition․ A must-see this summer․ A landmark exhibition now open at the Brooklyn Museum celebrates the fashion of Africa over the past 60 years, and it begins by showcasing the designers who came to prominence there during the middle of the last century․

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