The potential and Problems of Global Fashion and Design Histories

How are South African and Senegalese fashion designers and stylists - like the Sartists, the Smarteez, Lukhanyo Mdingi, Selly Rabe Kane, and others - reviving and adapting 20th Century urban (activist) fashion movements – for example the Swenkas and the Pantsulas – as a way of forging local histories of dress?

Delivered at: ‘KpaKpaKpa: Connecting places and practices’, Museum of Contemporary African Art (MOCAA), Cape Town (167 attendees). Organisers: Cher Potter, Prof M’Rithaa, Mark Coetzee (MOCAA). Eighteen speakers including Dr Tanya Bosch (Media Studies, University of Cape Town), Dr Erica DeGreef (Senior Curator, MOCAA), Mokena Makeka (Makeka Design Lab), Xzavier Zulu (Sartists) investigated pan-African connections in games design, robotics, wearables; and African urban identity through fashion, social media, built environment.