Fashioning the Afropolis

"A revelation. Reclaiming fashion from its European history." - Shane White With a focus on sub-Saharan Africa, Fashioning the Afropolis provides a range of innovative perspectives on global fashion, design, dress, photography, and the body in some of the major cities, with a focus on Lagos, Johannesburg, Dakar, and Douala. It contributes to the ongoing debates around the globalization of fashion and fashion theory by exploring fashion as a genuine urban phenomenon on the continent and among its diasporas. To date, "fashion" and "city" have not been systematically related to each other in the African context and, for too long, a western-centric gaze has dominated scholarship, resulting in the perception of Africa as provincial and its visual arts and textile cultures as static and folkloristic. This perspective is all the more distorted, given Africa's rich sartorial past. With a huge number of tailors ready to adapt and renew clothing, reshaping garments into contemporary styles, and many cities in Africa becoming hot-spots for a steadily growing and well-connected scene of fashion designers in the past 20 years, the time is ripe for a reevaluation and reconsideration of the fashionscapes of Africa. Leading scholars offer an updated empirical and theoretical foundation on which to base new and exciting research on sub-Saharan fashion, challenging perceptions and offering new insights.

Kerstin Pinther is Professor of Arts and Material Cultures of Africa in the Department of Art History at Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany. Kristin Kastner is Lecturer and post-doctoral researcher at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. Basile Ndjio is Professor of Anthropology, University of Douala, Cameroon, Central Africa, and Senior Research Fellow at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.

List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors 1. Introduction: Fashioning the Afropolis. Histories, Materialities and Aesthetic Practices (Kerstin Pinther, Kristin Kastner) PART I: Histories and Archives 2. Woman in a White Tobe: Activism, Nostalgia and a Viral Image in Sudan (Marie Grace Brown, University of Kansas, USA) 3. Afro-Brazilian Dress Modes in Family Photo Archives in Lagos (Frank A. O. Ugiomoh, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria) 4. Tracing Threads of Time and Space in Conceptual Fashion Design in Lagos (Alexandra Weigand, Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Germany) Visual Essay: The Transformation of Ndop Fabric from its Production in (Pre)colonial Artisan Centres to Contemporary Urban Fashion Design (Michaela Oberhofer, Museum Rietberg, Zurich, Germany) PART II: Materialities and Aesthetic Practices 5. Born to Shine: Fashionable Practices of Refining and Wearing Textiles in Dakar (Kristin Kastner, Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Germany) 6. Looking East: Boharaba Vogue and the Sinonization of Fashion and Beauty in Douala (Basile Ndjio, University of Douala, Cameroon, Central Africa) 7. Between Presence and Evocation: Fashion Design, Photography and Place-Making in Lagos (Kerstin Pinther, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany) Visual Essay: Cairo Ascending (Rana EINemr with Alaa Abo El Goud) PART III: Bodies and Media 8. Trans-Worlding: Fela Kuti's Sartorial Rebellion and Pan-African Influence (Nomusa Makhubu, University of Cape Town, South Africa) 9. Our Tribe: The Sartists' Portrayal of Post-Subculture in Johannesburg (Cher Potter, London College of Fashion and V&A, London, UK) 10. Africanfuturist Dakar in Selly Raby Kane's Designs (Enrica Picarelli) Visual Essay: From Second Hand in Lome to Second Life in Paris (Andrew Esiebo, artist and founding member of Black Box, Nigeria) 11. Epilogue (Victoria L. Rovine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA) Bibliography Index