PREVIOUSLY IN PART 2 – After a tragic family loss, life began in New York City. Follow my journey at Parsons, the new School of Design and find out how my African Fashion era started. See more here.

Part 3

10 years on from parsons.

My first published work on Vogue Italia online under the Vogue talents project ,covered GT Bank Lagos fashion and design week (LFDW) as it was known back then. This was 2013. 

I sent a small blurb and a selection of 40 + photos of the best talent from fashion week and the best images from the runway shows. 

I don’t remember all the finer details but it was my first time in Nigeria and I was there to attend the 3rd edition of LFDW, with VIP tickets , my Nikon, my curiosity and my eyes. 

Look, Lagos is visceral and sensational. 

In fact, it intoxicates, contradicts and seduces you in more ways than one. 

I promise you , you’ve never seen anything like it. 

Because Lasgidi is a portal to a world deeply and beautifully different, creatively full and intensely chaotic, wrapped in its own flavour, flair and heat. 

Leanne Tlhagoane

Now the thing about Lagos and fashion is, you will meet people. The fashion week events are a drawcard capable of bringing divergent fashion people together from everywhere. 

Perhaps it was just the arrow of serendipity pointing at me again, but I met a girl who knew someone who wanted images to share on Lagos Fashion and design week and asked if I would mind connecting. 

That someone was Sara Maino. 

And that is how I came to share in various ways and on various platforms all my highlights and best talents from African fashion weeks happening all over the continent over the last decade .

DECADE OF FASHION    

In the beginning: 

I had a Tumblr blog called African’naissance, dedicated to keeping a fashionable eye on urban Africa. 

Along with 40 photos covering a mix of backstage, street style, venue and runway, I sent this blur to Vogue Italia. 

“In its 3^rd year, Guaranty Trust Bank and Style House Files present Lagos fashion and design week 2013.  Taking place in the fashion capital of Lagos, at the Ecko Hotel, Ocean View, it is a premier platform that showcases the best creative fashion talent, facilitates fashion conversations and features local fashion products and accessories.”

It featured a list of 24 African fashion designers like Christie Brown, Orange Culture, Wana Sambo, Tsemaye Binitie, Nkwo, Bridget Awosika, Iconic Ivanity, Tiffany Amber, Kenneth Ize (young designer), Okunoren twins and Jewel by Lisa . Posted in a diary format,  it was published as “Impressions of Lagos 1 & 2”. 

A Special highlight:

The special diary from Mercedes Benz AFI Jo’burg fashion week was published in April 2014. In the email I wrote to Sara Maino, Vogue Italia and head of Vogue Talents, I said, 

“ Below are details for fashion week Joburg 2014 which is the first of the African Fashion weeks for 2014. The full name of the event is Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Joburg 2014 where Autumn/Winter collections are shown by a variety of designers. It was held at the Sandton Convention Centre , Johannesburg South Africa.

For this event I focussed on an exciting young knitwear designer who showed both a menswear and womanswear collection for the first time in Johannesburg, South Africa.

It is called MaXhosa Knitwear presented by Laduma Ngxokolo, and the creative inspiration is drawn from the traditions, culture and heritage of the Xhosa people of South Africa. There are a combination of backstage and ramp photos from this show mixed with photos that reflect the fashion scene, style and venue etc. “ 

It was enormously exciting and a very special moment because it was the first internationally published story of the brand Maxhosa on such a renowned and well respected fashion platform as Vogue.it. 

I first met Laduma Ngxokolo, founder and creative director of Maxhosa Africa in Cape Town, South Africa around February 2014, after spotting his graduation collection online in 2012. That moment in my New York City  apartment was the spark and first inspiration for me towards creating African’naissance. 

The essence of what I wanted to capture and share then, was what I believed to be the renaissance, the rebirth and the regeneration of a new urban Africa through fashion and design. 

African’naissance soon evolved to REFASHION AFRICA: a fashionable eye on urban Africa. 

Round up:

The Decade of Fashion infographic is a chronological highlight of my work and contribution to African fashion from 2013-2023, a golden decade for fashion in Africa. 

2018 was a big year. In April, my opinion piece on Vogue Africa was published on BOF (Business of Fashion) on my husbands birthday. I’ll never forget how I was ‘sweating bullets’ in the days prior whilst holidaying in Zanzibar for his birthday celebration with family and friends. Can you imagine making final edits at the Park Hyatt Stonetown sitting just off to the side of the party group? And then to top it off the publishing drama when Naomi Campbell made an unexpected announcement calling for Vogue Africa in an interview on Reuters whilst in Lagos days prior to my opinion piece being published. 

More on the aftermath of that Article in an upcoming blog. Because in a way it was a turning point for me. 

Of course, it would be remiss of me to not mention the first international coverage of Thebe Magugu on Vogue Talents in 2017.

Read up on his debut collection called ‘Geology’ by clicking on infographic .

Of course, Thebe Magugu went on to become fashions biggest winner in 2019 when he won the LVMH prize.

A historic win, the significance of which can never be understated ever.  

Over the years I have covered several of Lukhanyo Mdingi’s collections on Vogue Italia and Nataal . Lukhanyo has gone on to win the Karl Lagerfeld Prize at the LVMH prize 2021 with his eponymous label and topped that up with the Amiri prize this year. 

A fellow Taurean, and an incredible designer I’m a proud owner of his iconic ‘Pajama Look’.

Read more here on the luxury brand that showcases artisanal craftmanship and sustainable values.

MmusoMaxwell are my favourite duo designer. But the first time I saw their work on the runway it was as individual collections by Mmuso Potsane and Maxwell Boko. They were  part of a David Tlale internship program presentation at African Fashion International fashion week in Johannesburg in 2016.

After they joined forces, this ready to wear brand has gone from strength to strength winning big at the International Woolmark prize last year. Their focus on a modern aesthetic, tailoring, luxury details and African heritage makes this contemporary brand a leading force in fashion. 

Fashion handbook South Africa was my next in Fashion. It was the next level evolvement from Refashion Africa. I took ownership of it in 2018 and produced three print magazine versions with distinct covers and cover stories.

In October 2018 , Beauty was the focus with a cover story on the beauty landscape in South Africa. In April 2019 we led with Luxury Fashion Africa covering the Conde Nast International (CNI) / Suzy Menkes luxury fashion event in Cape Town (which incidentally was the last event), and then in October 2019 a focus on Summer and the Southern hemisphere with thoughts on how African fashion designers should lead global Spring/Summer collections by getting ahead of the global Spring/Summer collections curve. 

Probably the most important point to end off the round up is to say that the purpose of recording the ‘Decade of Fashion’ in this way is to share, document and archive the last decade of African Fashion through my own personal efforts, in my own small way. 

There are many people like me that have made contributions and participated in one way or the other, big and small to the development and growth of the African fashion ecosystem. 

I admire and respect them all. 

And I hope to bring some of their stories to the fore in upcoming weeks.

Onwards.  

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If you missed Part 1 read more here and Part 2 read more here