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Dakar glamour show rides wave of African fashion

Life & Style
DAKAR — When Adama Ndiaye quit banking in Europe for life as a young clothes designer back home in Senegal, there was no show in town at which she could show off her wares. So she decided to put on one of her own. “We offered a ticket, we were renting boats, we were renting […]

DAKAR — When Adama Ndiaye quit banking in Europe for life as a young clothes designer back home in Senegal, there was no show in town at which she could show off her wares. So she decided to put on one of her own.

“We offered a ticket, we were renting boats, we were renting camels,” she said, explaining how she lured other designers to the dusty, vibrant city of Dakar jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean. “It was one day of shows and three days of fun.”

But with African fashion growing bigger and bolder at home, and starting to register on the radar of design houses and style magazines abroad, Dakar Fashion Week, 10 years on, a thirteenfold increase in budget and 30 designers coming from across the continent, is now a far more serious affair.

“Now it is just fashion,” Ndiaye added, between fielding calls in preparation for the night’s show. “In the last few years, you can feel that African fashion is getting bigger, stronger and better.”

In an effort to make the extravaganza more accessible, the week kicked off with a catwalk erected on Dakar’s Boulevard Centenaire, more accustomed to parading soldiers celebrating Senegal’s independence from France than sashaying models.

Designers displayed outfits drawing on influences from across Africa and further afield, mixing modern styles with colourful improvisations of traditional dress. Drab residential blocks were lit up with orange, yellow and blue lasers as thumping music drew hundreds out of their houses.

“This is great. We all love fashion. They have never done this before here,” said Mbarka Mbodji, a street vendor doing a swift trade in beef skewers and plastic sachets of chilled water on the street corner overlooking the makeshift catwalk.

Shows wound up at the other end of the spectrum, in front of Dakar’s booted and suited elite gathered on the manicured, palm-fringed gardens of one of the city’s most expensive hotels.

The rise in prominence of African fashion has not come without its controversies. Some fashion houses have been accused of pilfering ideas from African designers who are not credited when outfits are rolled out at high-profile shows.

Vogue Italia recently devoted an entire issue to “Rebranding Africa”, but drew criticism for reverting to old stereotypes and putting United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, a South Korean, on its front cover.

“Fashion is an elitist world that doesn’t like innovation,” said Marie-Jeanne Serbin-Thomas, editor of Brune, another African fashion magazine. “People are using African cloth, but not recognising it as they fear it will devalue (their work). “The image of Africa is still that of cheap products, badly made that people won’t spend money on. Things are changing, but there is still this mentality. (To many), Africa means safari or jungle. But the creativity you see here has nothing to do with this. It is modern, it is international,” she added.