About a year ago, the Cameroonian fashion photographer Mario Epanya had the idea of a Vogue Africa. He did a series of fabulous fictitious covers, representative of the black beauty and reflecting what this magazine could be.
The project could not be materialized as Condé Nast, publisher of Vogue (politely) declined the proposal. The reasons cited? Africa is not a potential market for Vogue because Africans do not consume enough of Luxury Brands! Are you kidding me? Should we become compulsive buyers of PRADA and CHANEL for our continent has a right to its own Vogue?
After this decision, the whole web (as well as the black and proud fashionistas) initiated an intense debate on the ashes of the African Vogue. Some felt Condé Nast attitude was arrogant and contemptuous, and others thought we should have expected that. But deep down, is it a bad thing?
African fashion is full of talented fashion designers who yearly prove their ability to surprise and innovate. The collections are becoming more and more sophisticated, avant-garde, edgy. Designers such as Tiffany Amber, David Tlale, Duaba Serwa or Christie Brown have no longer anything to prove about the quality of their work. Fashion weeks bloom around the continent and are better organized.
For Africa, the black beauty is more than a trend in that western magazines and brands have seized to stay in the wind. African fashion goes far beyond the Wax/Ankara trend. This industry is may be nascent and fragile but it has real capacities.
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| David Tlale AFW2011 |
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| Duaba Serwa AFW2011 |
No, Africa does not need a Vogue. Our expression of fashion does not need to be formatted, molded into a western distorted vision. Our fashion is too big, too deep, and too subtle with its multitude of features, its diverse cultural influences and its uniqueness to be reduced to simplistic, caricatured labels.
It is not as if we had no fashion magazines, AT ALL. What do you do of ARISE Magazine, Haute Fashion or even BHF Magazine? What do you do of these websites and blogs that have set out to celebrate our fashion? Of course, a Vogue Africa would have been rewarding but we are now free to create hundreds of magazines, as different as each aspect of African fashion.
