Crucial in all of this is a desire for Africa to maintain momentum as a hub of creativity and craftsmanship that exports homegrown savoir-faire rather than imports western waste.
Social media justifiably gets a bad rap. But for the Gabonese-born, Senegal-based designer Yembangoyi Joyce Justin, who goes by the name Neguin Yemba’s, Instagram has opened a unique window on his burgeoning Dakar fashion brand, Gringo Custum. Defined by cleverly collaged, hand-crafted pieces that blend upcycled denim with embroidered tapestry trimmings and densely patterned cotton patches, Gringo Custum’s pieces have an instantly recognisable homespun, avant-garde aesthetic. Generating just as many likes on feed are the items adorned with repurposed computer keys – a clever nod to the brand’s global visibility thanks to the internet. “We try to push ideas and break the usual codes,” says Yemba’s.
Such ingenuity is partly born of necessity. The British charity Oxfam estimates that at least 70 per cent of donated used clothes from Europe end up in Africa. The sub-Saharan region is the world’s largest destination for second-hand clothing, and in 2021 it received almost 34 per cent of total world exports. Most of it ends up in landfill. In Ghana, for instance, which is often misleadingly described as the world’s thrift store, 15 million items of used clothing arrive every week. Forty per cent of these are discarded due to poor quality, ending up in landfill sites that then leak into the waterways, poisoning ecosystems and polluting the ocean.
The influx has led to a flurry of creativity with African designers leaning into upcycling. In Ghana, the creative collective and non-profit The Revival is scouring the stalls of the 30,000 traders in Kantamanto, one of the largest second-hand clothing markets in west Africa, for items that can be revived as part of its upcycled clothing line. In Uganda, designer Bobby Kolade is operating what he calls a “return-to-sender” model, repurposing second-hand clothes to comprise streetwear-infused looks under the name Buzigahill, and redistributing them to the global north where they were originally discarded. And in Kenya, Mohamed Awale, founder of Rummage Studio, sorts through the bales of mitumba, the Swahili term for the plastic-wrapped bundles of pre-loved clothes in Nairobi’s Gikomba market, for discarded clothing that can be deconstructed and remade as patchwork backpacks, totes, cross-body and messenger bags.
These designers are one prong of a cultural resurgence in the region, where Dakar has emerged as a thriving fashion hub. In December, Dakar Fashion Week celebrated its 20th anniversary with a three-day showcase of collections from 20 African designers hailing from Angola, Mozambique, Morocco and elsewhere. Days later, Chanel held its Métiers d’Art show, an annual showcase of French haute couture craftsmanship, at the city’s former Palais de Justice. The luxury brand had taken pains to offset any colonial accusations by spotlighting local art, literature, dance and music in a multi-day event. The show itself included performances by the local École des Sables dance school, as well as the young Senegalese singer Obree Daman; a literary salon later saw the French-Senegalese novelist Marie NDiaye in conversation with the Senegalese actor Rokhaya Niang.
Malick Bodian, the Senegalese model and photographer who is based between Paris and Dakar, was also invited to document Chanel’s collection coming together over a period of three months in his hometown. For one particular shoot, Bodian set about assembling vibrant locations that would encapsulate the creative current running through Dakar without sanitising any of its chaotic charm. Working with the Ivorian stylist Jenke Ahmed Tailly, he captured models on the streets and on the beach, leaning against surf shacks and perusing the market stalls in their Chanel tweeds. “That shoot was very challenging,” he recalls, over lunch in Paris in June. “It’s Chanel, one of the most luxurious brands. You can’t shoot it anywhere. But I had to be brave, and not go to the very rich areas of Senegal. I had to also show the real Senegal.”
Happily, seeking out unusual but evocative locations is one of Bodian’s specialist skills – and one that he’s keen to develop with Incredible Studios, the Africa-focused creative production company he founded in November 2022, and which helped pull this More Or Less shoot together. Bodian spotted the need for such a service while shooting a Vogue cover with Michaela Coel in the Ghanaian capital of Accra in the summer of 2022. Having struggled to find a local production company, the photographer joined forces with a film producer friend to scout locations for the resulting images and short films, which depict the Ghanaian-British actor stopping traffic in Makola Market and rollerblading through Jamestown. Based between Paris, Dakar and Accra, Incredible Studios hopes to show a more energising and unexpected side to Africa, stripped of clichés, while at the same time promoting cross-cultural collaboration. Bodian is not interested in foreigners shooting projects here for the mere beauty of the backdrop. “We choose projects based on the storytelling,” he elaborates, of Incredible Studios’s mission. “There needs to be an exchange.” In the next few months he will scout locations in Namibia, Zambia, the Ivory Coast and the farther-flung reaches of Senegal.
The promise of cultural exchange encouraged the Paris-born, Los Angeles-based Senegalese artist and art director Audrey d’Erneville to get involved in Chanel’s 19M project in 2022. Conceived as an extension of the Métiers d’Art show, Chanel held an exhibition in Dakar between January and March 2023 in partnership with the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire (IFAN) designed to highlight artisanal expertise from around the country. Spanning traditional embroidery from the town of Ngaye Méckhé, to woven canvases created by the Bamako-born artist Alassane Koné, to vast paintings by the Dakar-based artist Arébénor Bassené, the exhibits formed a neat counterpart to the traditional French specialty workshops Chanel owns and houses in the 19M complex in Paris. D’Erneville, who spends her time between LA and Dakar, and who finds much of her inspiration in the colours of the city, was tasked with creating a visual identity for the exhibition, encompassing everything from the logo to posters, flyers and social-media templates. She went bright and bold. “For as long as I can remember, the streets of Dakar have always been buzzing with various artisans, painters, furniture-makers, metalworkers,” she says. “What makes it so special is that most people still make ‘art for art’s sake’, so there’s an authenticity that we don’t find in a lot of other places.”
For designers like Neguin Yemba’s of Gringo Custum, this cultural boom is just the beginning for Senegal, and for Africa. “We are the proof of the evolution of the creative scene in Dakar, because we have led many people to believe that it’s possible to be pushed,” he says. “Dakar is a city full of hope.” Bodian, too, cites a atmosphere of optimism. “Some of the designers are like, ‘Oh my God, Chanel showed in our city! Now I believe in my dream’.”
Crucial in all of this is a desire for Africa to maintain momentum as a hub of creativity and craftsmanship that exports homegrown savoir-faire rather than imports western waste. For designer Faith Oluwajimi, founder of Bloke, a Lagos-born, London-based brand that reached the LVMH Prize semi-finals in 2023, it’s important to continue to promote Africa as a repository of “artisanal excellence”. (Bloke manufactures its artisanal knitwear in Lagos, in a painstaking garment-development process that could take “up to 14 days”, he says.) “This new generation is actively invested in the preservation and celebration of our culture,” says d’Erneville. “We definitely still have a way to go in solidifying our place in the global culture, but the most important shift in mindset is that as African creatives we now know that we are the ones moving the needle, and that we can achieve whatever we set our minds to – with or without international support.”
Location: Incredible Studios. Models: Penda Gueye, Oumy, Moussa, Mamadou, Cheikh Kébé at IMG. Head producer and casting: Cheikh Kébé. Production manager: Aminata Sarr. Production assistants: Nuel Ekuban, Marie Diallo, Kenza Hamdi. Production runner: Jaraf Ibrahima Ndiaye Sall. Stylist’s assistant: Khadija Diagne. Photographer’s assistant: Abdoulaye Silman Sy