How decolonised African fashion is inhabiting the V&A Museum

The Africa Fashion exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, seeks to reconsider and reflect the rich makings and functioning of Africa’s recent fashion history and industry. Since countries across the African continent gained independence from colonial rule, African creatives have used music, film and art and fashion as mediums to explore and reconnect to their heritage.

What may first appear as an ironic location for this showcase, the Africa Fashion exhibition is being held at the Victoria and Albert museum in London. The museum, which opened its doors in the late nineteenth century, has been a hallmark in the European art industry. But, in light of current decolonial movements, the museum is seeking to address its colonial underpinnings and showcase art, design and objects as markers of excellence from geographies and cultures previously not collected by the museum. Africa Fashion is the museum’s first foray into African fashion – the first of many, I hope.

The exhibition took over two years to create, bringing together artists, designers, scholars, and fellow curators to develop a showcase that displays historic pieces, such as the works of Kofi Ansah and Alphadi, and those of contemporary designers, such as Thebe Magugu and Imane Ayissi. Dr. Christine Checinska, the chief curator of the exhibition, explained to Harper’s Bazaar that the showcase presents African fashion as a “self-defining art form that reveals the richness and diversity of African histories and cultures.”

The maze-like structure of the exhibition takes you on a journey from the independence era through the late 20^th century to the contemporary moment, dealing with themes such as cosmopolitanism, diaspora, xenophobia, and more.

Aso Lànkí, Kí Ató Ki Ènìyàn (‘We greet dress before we greet its wearer’) collection, 2021, Lagos, Nigeria. Lagos Space Programme. Photo: © Kadara Enyeasi

Accompanying the garments on display are catwalk images and fashion sketches, as well as films, photography and other ephemera, highlighting the multifaceted, interdisciplinary nature of African fashion. Working across time and space, these pieces signal the fluidity, resilience and expressive permeability of culture. The exhibition also displays the interconnectedness of the world, and how fashion moves through the continent with traces from elsewhere.

Nkwo Onwuka, one of the designers whose work is displayed at the exhibition, explains how Dr. Checinska sought to create a showcase that brought together fashion and politics, and located that history in Africa.

“It feels so good to have someone finally interested in allowing us to tell our own stories and not be told how to do so,” Nkwo says.

The exhibition breaks away from western beauty standards by featuring mannequins with a variety of body shapes and skin tones. “Being a part of this ground-breaking exhibition feels like a ‘homecoming’ in some ways,” she adds. Nkwo explains how having her work showcased in the museum she spent much time in at the beginning of her career, was a full-circle moment for her.

‘The Trench’ designed by Maison ArtC, Morocco, 2021. © Image courtesy @M.A.Roock, model Abdul

I had the pleasure of visiting the exhibition during its opening week and it made me reflect on the politics surrounding an artist’s work and everything attached to it. It made me think about underlying implications of this exhibition, especially since it’s located in London. What does it mean to take up space as an artist of colour, in a museum that has historically displayed (and continues to display) the ‘conquests’ of colonialist expeditions? Or merely in a continent that has been responsible for the enslavement and exploitation of African people? Does the exhibition’s locality add to or detract from its impact?

The exhibition does present a new starting point, that is to begin a new fashion story, one that includes African creatives and African creativity. We need to see more of these kinds of exhibitions supported by institutions on our own continent. There is something unique about the show’s location. It brings decoloniality into the (physical) halls of the V&A, and perhaps, in this way begins the work of sharing the rich, diverse and powerful fashion from this continent.

Mbeuk Idourrou collection, Imane Ayissi, Autumn/Winter 2019, Paris, France. Photo: Fabrice Malard / Courtesy of Imane Ayissi

In her famous Ted Talk, writer and activist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks to the “single story” of Africa, on the one hand riddled with negative stereotypes that were fabricated to justify colonisation, and on the other hand, an African utopia filled with communal egalitarianism. But, neither version of Africa fits. These ideas imply there is a correct way of expressing culture and identity, often situated on either end of an imposed spectrum.

Instead, we know that there is so much more, found in spaces where we acknowledge the complexities of our worlds, the makings and un-makings of power, and where it situates us, as individuals, today. “When we reject the single story, when we realise that there is never a single story about any place – we regain a kind of paradise,” Chimamanda explains.

It is through exhibitions such as this, conversations, and storytelling that we can shift the narrative of African art, open up a plurality of histories, and work towards undoing the dangerous single story of Africa.

The sculptor El Anatsui explained it perfectly when he said, “cloth is to the African what monuments are to Westerners.” These garments are more than just fashion. They are stories. They carry the memories of the past and hold the promises of a decolonial future – they are signifiers of hope.