Contemporary African Fashion at Brighton Museum

The first major UK exhibition dedicated to contemporary African fashion opened at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery in April 2016 and will run through January 8th 2017.

Explore fashion and style in four cities at the compass points of the African continent – Casablanca in Morocco, Lagos in Nigeria, Nairobi in Kenya and Johannesburg in South Africa.

The exhibition focuses on the style choices of individual ‘fashion agents’ from each city from designers and stylists to photographers and bloggers. Museum staff and Africa fashion specialists Hannah Azieb Pool and Helen Jennings visited the cities in summer 2015 (supported in part by the Art Fund through the Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Grants Program) to explore their fashion scenes and identify key players.

The exhibition includes a wide range of apparel, from couture to street style – alongside images, film and sound evoking the drama, creativity and dynamism of the four distinctive cities.

Highlights include:

New commissions, including by Nairobi-based brother and sister duo 2Many Siblings (http://2manysiblings.tumblr.com/ )

Controversial high-fashion outfits worn by one of Kenya’s hottest bands, Sauti Sol (MTV Europe’s Best African Act 2014)

Garments and accessories associated with The Sartists, a Johannesburg-based creative collective documenting their lives and style in post-apartheid South Africa (https://instagram.com/thesartists )

Exquisite hand-crafted ‘caftan couture’ pieces by Casablanca-based designer Zhor Raïs