Thursday, June 30, 2011

Africans bring their continent’s style to the worldwide fashion scene - The Washington Post

Africans bring their continent’s style to the worldwide fashion scene - The Washington Post: The country known for genocide is now giving the world $140 sundresses.

In the hilly Rwandan capital of Kigali, 300 female survivors of the 1994 mass violence are stitching kanga cloth into cocktail dresses for Anthropologie stores and crafting braided banana-leaf bangles for Nicole Miller and Ralph Lauren. Similar women’s cooperatives have opened in the capitals of Uganda, Ghana and Ethiopia, all part of a recent push to bring African fashion — garments that are made by Africans — into high-end American stores.

The effort began several years ago after a group of young African fashion designers working in ateliers in the District and New York noticed that many of Africa’s indigenous textiles and styles were being co-opted by multimillion-dollar fashion houses and thought: Not this time — you can’t steal from Africa anymore.