Africa Fashion Week London 2011-2020: Exploring African Cultural Identities and the Transnational Practices of Nigerian Fashion

This exploratory work investigates the construction and representation of African cultural identities through the dress and design practices of Nigerian fashion designers at African Fashion Week London (AFWL) 2011-2020.

AFWL was established in 2011 by Olori Aderonke Ademiluyi Ogunwusi, a Yoruba, Nigerian-British entrepreneur. AFWL’s emergence counteracts the mainstream media stereotypes and narratives of African fashion cultures and misunderstandings of African cultural identities. This fashion event, which annually attracts Black African fashion designers, models, and creative workers to showcase the diversity of African fashion cultures, provides insights into how fashion serves as a means of challenging stereotypes and asserting cultural identity and aesthetic value in the global creative and cultural marketplace.

The study explores AFWL as one of the major sites for the cultural production and circulation of alternative mediated small narratives and knowledge of African fashions. It also argues that transnational and diasporic African fashion media has offered new opportunities for Nigerian fashion practitioners to challenge and shape industry practices by mediating representations, meanings, and cultural values rooted in African cultural heritage. The study examines how Nigerian diaspora fashion designers are promoting and facilitating cultural exchange, capacity building and the preservation of Nigerian fashion identities in a global context.

My research takes an interpretive, inductive approach of semi-structured informal interviews and incorporates analysis of archival materials/documents and participant observations at the fashion event setting. This thesis aims to contribute to the body of knowledge on transnational fashion practices, networks, and media and sets out how Nigerian diaspora fashion practitioners construct and assert contemporary African cultural identities.