Usually, we spend our time here celebrating the vibrant beauty of African fashion and its promising hold on the global market. But today we are going to shift gears and tone for a moment. Why? Well, it’s March 1st, the beginning of International Women’s Month. This year’s theme is#ChoosetoChallenge, which aims to celebrate women who have dared to stand up and make a difference in the world.
So how do we intersect with fashion? With love comes union, and how do we celebrate those unions? With weddings! If you didn’t know, African weddings are big, vibrant, and beautiful—from the food to festivities. But our main focus today will be the main attraction of most weddings—the outfits. Let’s take a look at a few different African traditional wedding attire.
PICHULIK employs women, collaborates with women, and outsources to local women-owned small businesses to promote job creation and economic activity in local communities, and champion and augment women’s earning capacity.
This and many other bags are handcrafted by Maasai mothers from the Maasai community in Ngong hills, in Kenya. Fusing a European style with vibrant and authentic Maasai designs aims to bring together the best of two worlds.
Shannette: I went to Ghana on a trip of a lifetime. It was my first time going. I chose Ghana because one of the universities in town takes students every summer. I always wanted to go to Africa. As I did more research, I found out that most black Americans who came to the US as slaves had come from Ghana or through the port of Ghana.
We hope you're not tired of hearing this because we will repeat it—continuously—until it stops being true, here it is—African fashion is blowing up everywhere. Every time you look up there's an Ankara inspired outfit, a fresh fusion combining a traditional head wrap with modern day jeans, or a young, new designer working in the heart of an African nation using its heritage to inform his or her new line. Africa's creativity is taking the world by storm and has no intention on stopping.
As we all know, Africa is a big place, so for today let's narrow the focus to the luxurious fashions coming from East Africa and the talented designers and brands behind them.