FASHION CONNECT AFRICA: a sanguine point of style difference to take place on the 30th of December, 2019 in Ghana

FASHION CONNECT AFRICA was established to help promote the African creative spirit, exposure for both Ghanaian and the African Fashion industry players. This project aims at bringing together global fashion players and the indigenous African fashion industry on the same platform to share ideas, solutions and find a way forward for the industry.

Why fashion connect Africa in the past, African Fashion was not widely known and accepted. It was hardly recognized, especially as a result of our colonial history. Also, there has not been enough publicity on the evolution and impact of African fashion. This anomaly has made a lot of fashion creatives in the continent remain unexposed to the global fashion community.

However, today, with more awareness created on the global stage, African Fashion has been on an upward progressive growth signaling the recent resurgence of African Fabrics like colorful Kente, Adire, Batik, among others. One could tell that African Fashion is now worn more often by people in the Diaspora, leading to more recognition and appreciation across other cultures.

Further, there has been a multitude of African cultural ideas which have been used as a rich source of inspiration to many western designers in the likes of Yves Saint Laurent, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Stella McCartney, Christian Dior, Comme des Garçons, Thierry Mugler, Louis Vuitton, and others. Similarly, African fashion is riding on a wave of creative output and recognition, gaining global visibility and an international clientele, this time with creative autonomy. It is currently moving on a wave of hyper-awareness of cultural appropriation and casual racial inappropriateness, which reached an all-time high in 2017.

Examples of these include H&M’s “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle” hoodie and Prada’s Pradamalia blackface key chain among others. Although these illustrate the current growth of fashion in Africa, there still remains a gap in addressing the untapped creatives and potential talents.

As a result, Fashion Connect Africa aims to strategically focus on strengthening the pillars of the African fashion society, establishing and setting industry standards for the successful promotion, development, revival of the local fashion industry through stronger global partnerships.

Its purpose is to inspire, empower and showcase established and upcoming fashion creatives’ crafts to the world. We intend to achieve this vision by bringing fashion lovers into a creative space where they can connect, interact, enjoy, network, learn, be inspired and have lots of fun.

To conclude, the event which will take place at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel on 30th December will create a great networking space for the world to connect to African fashion and style showcase while honoring and placing a spotlight on creative individuals who rightfully deserve recognition for their outstanding contribution to the sustainable growth of Fashion business in Africa. It will also discuss the impact of Fashion on the environment and call to action the way forward for the Industry.