Have you wondered how African fashion has become a new trend recently? Especially after Black Panther came out back in February. https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/black-panther-premiere-inspires-filmgoers-world-dress-part/story?id=53165923
Nene Kabutey, took time to interview Kennedy Nana Kofi Ansah a renowned Ghanaian celebrity designer and CEO of Afriken Novelty and popularly known as “Afriken by Nana”. He expressed his excitement that African fashion is gaining global exposure, “I have never been happier with knowing my continent is being represented on a global platform, Nana said”. About two decades ago a lot of people did not know about the continent in Africa and the rich culture they have when it came to fashion. The continent has also experienced some groundbreaking designers such as Christe Brown
http://www.christiebrownonline.com/cb-life/ and Duaba Serwaa https://face2faceafrica.com/article/duaba-serwa-presents-dzun
Fashion has come a long way globally. Years ago, most brands were used d to send catalogs to customers to let them know the new items they were in stock. As time went on that changed and sales started having sales programming on television to showcase these new items on a model. Now that there are several ways to advertise these products through the internet it’s become much easier to have several options to choose from. Such online outlets are Foreerv21, H&M, ASOS just to mention a few.
https://www.loc.gov/rr/business/fashion/fashion_exhibit.html
Kennedy continued to explain why all these factors into designing a nice outfit for anyone, especially the African woman. “An African woman embodies curves and she needs to show them in every outfit she wears, Nana said”. He continued to say most African women have natural curves and that causes attention most of the time. So, when it comes to him designing outfits for women he makes sure he’s designing it to suit the personality as well and not to be exposing their bodies because that causes a lot of attention already and not every woman likes to be the center of attention when she steps out.
https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2008/marchapril/feature/the-color-fashion
After the release of Black Panther, most celebrities in the African American community have been embracing the African fashion not only them but the majority of people around the world from different cultures and race are as well. Which makes us all believe fashion can bring us all together especially in the current situation we live in now.
*The chart above depicts the growing era of fashion from children, men and women over the years starting from 1970 till now. And as the world evolves these numbers would change.
Nene Kabutey Lander 