Photo: Instagram.com/ZelamfezzahayeARISE Fashion Week has become one of the most highly anticipated events on the African fashion calendar. The bi-annual fashion event, which debuted far back in 2007 in Nigeria and has, since then been hosting fashion shows in different locations across the globe, usually celebrates African designs and talents.
This year’s event is set to be even bigger and better, with designers from all over Africa who are set to showcase their latest collections. With the tagline “ARISE Fashion Week & Jazz Festival: Future Forward,” the event returns in February 2023 from 2nd – 4th and will feature a bevy of world-class designers and jazz performers, while providing the platform for them to showcase their collections to a global audience.
In keeping up with its ethos, other African designers (non-Nigerians) like Selam Fessahaye and Awa Meité, amongst a couple of others will be adding fresh energy to the portfolio of designers alongside their Nigerian counterparts.
If you are wondering who is who, then continue reading to meet other African designers that will touchdown Lagos for the 2023 ARISE Fashion Week!
1. Mokodu Fall — Senegal
Artist and caricaturist Mokodu Fall, who is originally from Senegal, moved to Italy at the age of 22 in order to “discover the art of culture.” Fall lives in Dunkirk, in northern France, and Rome, and he designs collections under the name “Modoku Fall” that draw inspiration from his African ancestry. The artist specializes in figurative/portrait hand painting, and his creations pay tribute to figures who have made significant contributions to African culture, world peace, and urban cultures.
2. Bianca Saunders — British-Jamaican
Bianca Saunders is a London-based fashion designer who focuses on menswear and incorporates cross-cultural inspirations into a contemporary and rejuvenated evolution of menswear. She creates contemporary pieces that challenge traditional gender norms and stereotypes through a unique combination of textures, materials, and silhouettes. Her designs draw inspiration from their individual identities and ethnic backgrounds and have been recognized and praised by leading fashion industry figures, as well as featured in numerous fashion shows and exhibitions.
3. Travis Obeng-Casper — Ghana
At the nexus of minimalism and modern African art and culture, Travis Obeng-Casper founded the unisex Ghanaian clothing line AJABENG. The brand mixes these two seemingly unrelated components to produce a design that embodies both the simplicity of minimalism and the exuberance of African culture. In order to establish an experimental yet adventurous style, AJABENG explores both feminine and masculine design aspects.
4. Awa Meité — Mali
Awa Meité, a native of Mali, is a well-known fashion and textile designer as well as a painter, filmmaker, and stylist. The Meité brand promotes regional designers who produce some of the most artistic clothing and accessories in the nation. Her ethical ready-to-wear collections, which feature a variety of eye-catching silhouettes and hand-woven pieces, pay homage to the long tradition of workmanship and design in her own country.
5. Selam Fessahaye — Swedish-Eritrean
Selam Fessahaye is a Swedish-Eritrean costume designer who launched her first ready-to-wear collection in August 2018. For her, designing entails complete creative freedom. Fessahaye has developed a strong DNA where each piece has its own identity, charisma, and character since the exhibition of her first complete collection during Fashion Week in Stockholm.
6. Olooh — Côte d’Ivoire
The 26-year-old Ivorian photographer Kader Diaby launched the fashion label Olooh in 2018. In the previous year, Kader Diaby began creating clothing for his photo shoots while acquiring sewing skills from his mother, a skilled seamstress. Kader DIABY creates his clothing by hand in the Ivory Coast, specializing in unisex, modernist apparel made of organic materials. Olooh, which in “Senufo language” means “ours,” was greatly influenced by Diaby’s Ivorian culture and the vivacious spirit of Abidjan, where he was born and raised.
7. XULY.Bët — Malian/Senegalese
Lamine Kouyaté, the African fashion designer, who resides in Paris, is the brain behind the XULY.Bët brand. The company is well known for using recycled clothing to make high fashion, altering found garments by cutting, sewing, and silk-screening, or making adjustments that range from subtle contouring of a seam to completely changing a garment’s purpose.
8. UNI FORM — South Africa
UNI FORM is a Johannesburg-based fashion label founded by Luke Radloff that is committed to excellence and sustainability. The brand blends the new with the old, taking inspiration from the city of Johannesburg, where it is based, and transforming them into ultra-modern shapes. The UNI FORM collection, which is based on quality and garment development and contains upgraded classics filtered through the lens of a new South Africa, is primarily composed of modular, trans-seasonal pieces.
