Africa Fashion at the V&A Museum: Challenging Stereotypes and Celebrating Style on African Terms

When the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London opened the doors to its Africa Fashion exhibition, it marked more than just another curated display; it was a powerful cultural moment—a moment in history like no other.

For decades, African fashion had been dismissed, exoticised, or sidelined in global fashion conversations. But this exhibit gave it a stage where it could speak boldly, beautifully, and on its own terms.

The Africa Fashion exhibition, which ran from 2022 to 2023, was the largest of its kind in the UK, showcasing over 250 pieces from more than 40 designers from across the African continent. As well as other significant pieces of African history.

It was a long-overdue celebration of Africa’s creative brilliance, history, and modern style movements. For many, it wasn’t just an exhibition; it was validation.

A Reclaimed Narrative

Africa has often been viewed through a Western lens as the “other,” with fashion from the continent reduced to tribal clichés or simply labelled “ethnic” or “exotic.” The V&A’s Africa Fashion exhibit shattered those outdated stereotypes. Rather than framing African fashion as derivative or decorative, the curators emphasised its rich historical lineage, political relevance, and global innovation.

From the independence era to contemporary fashion weeks in Lagos, Accra, and Dakar, the exhibit traced how African designers have long been at the intersection of culture, resistance, and creativity. The clothes told stories of struggle, pride, memory, and ambition.

As curator Dr. Christine Checinska put it, “Africa Fashion is a love letter to African creativity and self-expression. It’s about agency, about voice, and about rewriting history through fashion.”

A Showcase of Continental Diversity

Africa is not a country—and Africa Fashion made that abundantly clear. The exhibit featured work from designers across multiple countries, regions, each with distinct styles, histories, and aesthetics.

From South Africa, there were bold and conceptual designs from Thebe Magugu. He had an exhibit called “Fashion in Motion” which showed 25 looks that were curated from thrifted clothes dumped in Dunusa, Johannesburg, by Europe and America. The looks in the exhibit were rooted deep in “national identity politics, and how western influence has penetrated indigenous dress.”  

Thebe Magugu’s exhibit, photographed by Kristin Lee Moolman

Ghana’s Kofi Ansah was highlighted for his pioneering work in fusing traditional textiles with futuristic silhouettes. Although he had died in 2014, the founding directors of the Kofi Ansah Foundation were delighted to showcase his life’s work and legacy at the V&As. Kofi is the godfather of Ghana’s fashion landscape, as described by Melange Africa, and his work deserved to be showcased.

Ensembles designed by Kofi Ansah for the wedding of Ashley Shaw-Scott Adjaye and David Adjaye at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Image Source: Victoria and Albert Museum

Nigeria’s Shade Thomas-Fahm, often considered the first modern fashion designer in the country, was celebrated for modernizing Yoruba traditional wear in the 1960s. During her time, Shade made revolutionary pieces for the contemporary woman; her boutique in Lagos was the go-to spot for the fashion-inclined. Her place in African Fashion was undisputable.

Shade's Boutique advertising, illustrated by Kemmer, at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Other names like Imane Ayissi (Cameroon), Lisa Folawiyo (Nigeria), Mowalola Ogunlesi (Nigeria/UK), and IAMISIGO (Ghana/Nigeria) brought a youthful, daring, and thoroughly modern take on African fashion identity.

Each designer showcased how African fashion is not monolithic. It’s traditional and futuristic, local and global, functional and poetic, all at once.

Beyond Clothes: A Cultural Movement

The V&A exhibit didn’t just focus on garments. It explored the whole cultural ecosystem of African fashion: photography, music, art, magazines, and protest movements. Vintage covers of Drum magazine, early fashion films, and street photography were displayed alongside textiles and designs. 

ANC Nelson Mandela commemorative cloth from South Africa, at Victoria and Albert Museum, photographed by Istituto Marangoni.

This broader context reminded visitors that African fashion is deeply intertwined with politics, pop culture, and personal identity. It has been used as a tool of resistance during colonial rule, as an expression of pan-African pride, and as a symbol of youth-led rebellion in today’s digital age. 

Beasts of No Nation, Fela Kuti, album cover artwork by Lemi Gharioukwu, Sanachie Records, 1989, at the V&A Museum.

The exhibition was divided into sections to explore the histories of various parts of Africa properly. There were several sections: Politics and Poetics of Cloth, The Vanguard, A Black Atlantic, Cutting Edge, African Spirituality and Ancestral Relationships, The African Cultural Renaissance, and Capturing Change.

The Politics and Poetics of Cloth section at the V&A Museum

There were also sub-sections like Minimalism, Mixology, Artisanal, Afrotopia, Adornment, and Sartorialists, each showcasing specific designers and their works. 

It also gave space to movements like the Alté scene in Nigeria or the rise of Afrofuturism, which are reshaping not only fashion but the entire aesthetic language of a generation.

A Global Moment, Rooted in African Terms

What made Africa Fashion so impactful was not just that it was hosted at one of the world’s most prestigious museums, but that it allowed African voices to speak for themselves. The curation centred on African perspectives rather than filtering them through a Eurocentric lens.

The exhibit's tone was celebratory, not patronising. It didn’t attempt to "elevate" African fashion to a Western standard. Instead, it honoured it as already complete, powerful, and worthy on its own terms.

Africa Fashion at the V&A signaled a turning point, a recognition that African designers, stylists, and fashion thinkers don’t need saving or translating. They need platforms, not permissions.

The Ripple Effect

Since the exhibit, there has been a growing interest in investing in and platforming African fashion globally. International media outlets covered the event extensively, and social media buzzed with photos, reactions, and personal reflections. African designers featured in the exhibit have since gained wider recognition and partnerships.

More importantly, the exhibit inspired pride among Africans and the diaspora, who saw their stories, fabrics, and innovations finally honoured in a major Western museum. It sparked conversations about ownership, heritage, and the future of African fashion, not as an emerging trend, but as a global force.

The Africa Fashion exhibition at the V&A wasn’t just a celebration of clothing—it was a statement. A statement that African fashion is intellectual, political, artistic, and alive. A statement that challenges the centuries-old “exotic” label and replaces it with something more accurate: authentic, diverse, and powerful.

By putting African designers at the centre of their own narratives, the V&A helped shift the global gaze. And for a continent too often spoken about rather than with, that shift was a moment long overdue and deeply necessary.