Fashion for Development: Bringing African fashion to Western shoppers

Some significant developments have taken place in African fashion over the last 5 years. The first of these has to do with perception: African fabrics and fashion items are no longer seen by western audiences and buyers solely as "traditional" wear (which was always just another way of saying what Africans made and wore lacked the finesse of western fashion).

Hand in hand with this has been the increasing use of African textiles and other craft and fashion elements by western designers, such as Louis Vuitton's use of the Kenyan Shuke in its Spring/Summer 2012 collection.

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This is where international organization Fashion 4 Development (F4D) thinks it can make a difference: by preparing African designers to work with western retailers, and bringing the two parties together (...)

[Read Augustina Austin's article on This is Africa]

Louis Vuitton Spring Summer 2012 Menswear Backstage | Stylerumor Mag :