Boiling African creation | The echoes<

A white and black jacket with oversized shoulders, with gold masks as buttons: last summer, this outfit worn by Beyoncé in her musical film Black is King, gave global visibility to its creator, the Ivorian Loza Maléombho. A few months earlier, 26-year-old South African Thebe Magugu became the first designer from the black continent to receive the coveted LVMH prize.

Next year in London, the Victoria & Albert Museum will present "Africa Fashion", a major exhibition devoted to African creation, from the aftermath of the Second World War to the present day. “We will celebrate the vitality and innovation of this vibrant scene, as dynamic and varied as the continent itself,” enthuses Christine Checinska, appointed curator of fashion and African diasporas at the museum last year. These are all signs that more and more creators from the continent are winning the international scene, decades after the pioneers Shade Thomas-Fahn, Chris Seydou and Kofi Ansah.

This success has several origins. Thebe Magugu offers an explanation. “We have all been influenced by the Africa of today, which merges our heritage with our globalized worldview. It creates an incredibly modern, but also authentic aesthetic, which I believe explains the current interest in Africa. René Célestin, founder of the fashion and luxury events agency Obo, goes further. “With globalization and the search for commercial development, cultural canons are expanding, including in fashion. The customers are more open and the diasporas are more willing to appropriate these enlarged locker rooms. Fashion authorities are therefore urged to be less and less discriminating. Prejudices and stereotyped vision fade. »

Local fashion weeks take part in wearing these colors, in Dakar in Senegal, in Johannesburg in South Africa, in Accra in Ghana, and especially in Lagos in Nigeria, particularly since Naomi Campbell has made the ambassador. In Paris, fashion weeks have opened their doors to the figureheads of these new generations, far from wax. In January 2020, the Nigerian Kenneth Ize paraded there for the first time, at the age of 29, with combos of bombers and miniskirts or trouser suits in electric hues, mixing ancestral techniques and Western fashion with panache. He offered a darker collection this winter.

"A library of cultures"

Also entered the ready-to-wear calendar last year, Thebe Magugu has made a name for itself with a committed wardrobe with feminist accents. This winter, he presented romantic, mystical or conquering silhouettes, in a film inspired by the traditional healers of his country. He defines his brand - distributed in 26 points of sale, from Russia to China via the United States - as "a library of cultures from Africa and South Africa, seen and read across the fashion ".

Cameroonian Imane Ayissi, 52, has joined the official haute couture calendar. Influenced by his career as a dancer, the designer creates moving silhouettes, while highlighting traditional know-how, such as kente weaving or obom, a vegetable skin produced from tree bark.

His collections are distributed in Cameroon, Nigeria, Morocco and Paris, and his couture pieces are shipped all over the world. Does he see any commonalities among African designers? “They come from an environment where the fashion and textile industry is in its infancy. They therefore have more difficulty in existing than Americans or Europeans, he replies. But everyone cultivates their own style. Perhaps they have in common a freer approach to color. »

A window on the international scene

As for trade fairs, Who's Next regularly presents African designers, highlighted with a specific theme in 2018. The physical brands are open to them drop by drop. A few one-off operations have been well organized, such as Blooming Africa at the Center commercial concept store last spring, or Africa Now at Galeries Lafayette in 2017. Within this last selection, Maison Château Rouge, which revisits the urban wardrobe with the emblematic wax , has since made its way into the catalogs of Monoprix or La Redoute.

Currently, at Le Bon Marché, only Thebe Magugu is listed. A few Parisian concept stores show more audacity: thus Front de mode, which notably presents Imane Ayissi, or Saargale, created by the Senegalese designer Adama Paris and entirely dedicated to creators from the continent. "The idea that African products are sold at prices worthy of luxury still poses a problem, even when they are perfectly made, with real craftsmanship," observes Imane Ayissi.

It was the Internet that offered these new figures a window onto the international scene. “The digital world has accelerated the expansion of the industry on the continent and globally, whether through sales platforms and industry networks or self-representation and promotion via social networks”, emphasizes Christine Checinska. A series of multi-brand e-commerce sites have indeed become the herald of the continent's high-end creations.

"Bringing designers out of the ghetto"

This is the case of Ditto Africa, created in 2018, which lists 60 brands - including I.Am. Isigo mixing textile experiments and minimalist forms -, or Industrie Africa, a virtual showroom that became a sales site last summer. In France, journalist Emmanuelle Courrèges set up the Lago54 agency. For the past four years, she has presented small series pieces there, such as those of the Pop Caven sisters, whose best-selling sweatshirt "Africa is not a Country" sums up very well the state of mind of the continent's creators.

In 2014, the Franco-Cameroonian Nelly Wandji created MoonLook to "get African designers out of the ghetto and dust off the imagination". Its fashion, beauty and accessories selection includes Aaks, a Ghanaian brand of handmade raffia bags, or Kente Gentlemen by Ivorian Aristide Loua, who celebrates kente, a traditional woven loincloth, through unisex creations with bold colors. In a more mass market register, Afrikrea, founded in 2016, aggregates thousands of references made in Africa.

In parallel with these channels, social networks offer a formidable sounding board for the African fashion boom. “For these creators, it's an extraordinary tool for leveling up opportunities,” confirms René Célestin. Thus, the Nigerian Adebayo Oke-Lawal, under his Orange Culture label, distills his unisex creations to some 110,000 Instagram followers, combining urban cuts and graphic patterns, while the South African Laduma Ngxokolo presents his knitwear inspired by the weaving of pearls of the Xhosa ethnic group to its 160,000 subscribers.

But one of the best showcases of contemporary African creation is undoubtedly the stars. In addition to the pieces of Loza Maléombho, which she wore in particular at the Grammy Awards, Beyoncé became the ambassador of the Senegalese Sarah Diouf. His colleague Alicia Keys promotes the work of Ghanaian label Christie Brown. A way to talk about these creations without highlighting their common origin? "This African fashion label, used ten years ago when it was embryonic, means less and less to say something, brands must succeed in emancipating themselves from it", professes Nelly Wandji.

In design, connected and committed creators

In 2015, the Vitra Design Museum presented “Making Africa. A Continent of Contemporary Design”. This exhibition illustrated how design accompanies economic and political changes on the continent, in particular through a new generation of designers, digital natives, offering the world another point of view on Africa. While there are no major local furniture manufacturers or a design industry, there are exceptional craftsmanship, a true tradition of objects and digital tools all over the continent. "Design can only find its place, its public, and be a vector of cultural economy", enthuses the Ivorian designer Jean Servais Somian.

Contemporary African design has a few well-known figures. Among them the Malian Cheick Diallo, whose work is regularly presented in biennials and galleries, the Senegalese Bibi Seck, creator of the famous furniture M'Afrique who has studios in New York and Dakar, the Nigerian based in London Ifeanyi Oganwu, or the Togolese Kossi Aguessy, who died in 2017, whose furniture notably joined the collections of MoMA and the Pompidou Center.

These personalities paved the way. “We have always been designers. We have always used design to solve our immediate and utilitarian problems. For example, Zulu baskets woven from ilala palm, were not only beautiful but also used as storage units. Today, these baskets are highly sought-after collector's items,” relates the young Thabisa Mjo, whose creations have just entered the collections of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris. Young designers are aware of the richness of their know-how, they now want to appropriate it, develop it and share it with the world.

Based in Grand-Bassam, Jean Servais Somian is a trained cabinetmaker. He mainly works with coconut wood and revisits everyday African objects such as basins or canoes with a contemporary eye. The subject of numerous exhibitions in Africa, Europe and the United States, his work is exhibited in Paris at the 193 gallery. The designer has his own showroom where he sells his furniture directly. “We don't have major African furniture manufacturers, so we have to produce ourselves and show what we are capable of! he explains confidently.

This Ivorian craft is also praised by Racha Hassan and Dahlia Hojeij, founders of the design and architecture studio Ebur. The two young women grew up in Côte d'Ivoire. After studying architecture in Paris, they wanted to showcase Ivorian know-how. “Cabinet makers, ceramists, upholsterers… everything is there! » they note. "If the country has excellent craftsmen, many locals nevertheless buy furniture from major imported brands, such as Ligne Roset or Roche Bobois", continue the young women. Like Jean Servais Somian, they want to change the game and plan to open a showroom in Abidjan. "Young people are shaking up mentalities, they now want to consume African food", they enthuse.

In South Africa, contemporary design has already been established on the international scene for about ten years. “Design is just as recognized there as in the major European capitals, there are dedicated galleries and shops, and real purchasing power,” says Scott Billy, founder of the Parisian gallery Bonne Espérance. This American, who has lived in Johannesburg for more than twenty years, inaugurates his gallery in Paris in 2019. Among his designers, Thabisa Mjo. Head of his own Mash studio. T Design, the young designer combines technology and traditional craftsmanship to tell stories specific to her country. Two of his works, including the “Tutu 2.0” lamp inspired by the skirts of Tsonga women, will be presented in the next exhibition “Un Printemps incertain” at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris.

"For a more beautiful society"

For Scott Billy, Thabisa Mjo brilliantly embodies this young generation of designers. “She is creative, entrepreneurial, with an assumed social and feminist conscience. Thabisa produces to create a more beautiful, stronger society that takes its challenges head-on. For the young woman, her mission goes well beyond creativity: “It is very important to contribute to the maintenance and growth of the artisans with whom I associate myself. I can't just create for fun, I want to build a business model that will change people's lives in a meaningful way. »

Same impulse for Ambre Jarno. La Française created Maison Integre in Ouagadougou in 2017, which produces bronze objects based on the ancestral know-how of lost wax, in order to support this declining craft. She set up a workshop with about fifteen craftsmen, who had until then been more used to making folkloric objects. “The profession of designer does not exist in Burkina Faso, there are no art schools. In order to make up for this lack, it regularly invites designers, such as the Frenchman Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance, to create on site and discuss with its craftsmen.

Whether they are South Africans or from West Africa, the common point of these designers is social and participatory engagement, the desire to save their cultural economy, not to mention a perfect mastery of digital tools . This generation is, according to Cloé Pitiot, curator in the modern and contemporary department of the Museum of Decorative Arts, “totally rooted in its time, it opens a new path: more connected and more concerned about the planet. The designers all work in synergy, there are a lot of exchanges between the different players in the field across the continent. Social networks allow them to develop very quickly, they are hyperconnected and this is a real strength. »

The creation is there, but it still needs to gain visibility. The international market for African design is in full gestation. Charlotte Lidon and Olivia Anani, co-directors of the Africa + Modern and Contemporary Art department at Piasa, are very attentive to this. If parts are regularly included in their sales, it is still a market to build. “Designers need to be more valued, especially through exhibitions. The one currently devoted to the Lomé Palace to Kossi Aguessy will inevitably contribute to its rating,” they say. Without doubt, this is the right time to invest.

African Fairs

AKAA. Six years ago, Victoria Mann founded this fair in Paris dedicated to African art and design. This historian specializing in the artistic scenes of the continent made the observation at the time that these artists and designers were under-represented in France. They lacked a cultural and commercial platform to gain visibility. AKAA brings together 50 galleries and brought together 16,000 visitors during its last edition. Next meeting: from November 11 to 14, 2021.

1-54. The 1-54 fair, also dedicated to the African art scene, was created in London in 2013, before being exported to New York and Marrakech. Today, these events attract a large audience and not only informed collectors.