Attire Accessories -Jul/Aug 2018 (Issue 71)

ATTIRE 111 SPONSORED EDITORIAL African beats Europe’s top shows Who’s Next and Premiere Classe throw the spotlight on the best design from and inspired by Africa From Durban to Tunis and Addis Ababa to Dakar, the streets of Africa appear as fascinating, never- ending sources of inspiration for fashion design. Africa Street is a sacred path where brilliant, lively designs take life. Every moment, codes and fashions are invented, renewed and upturned. On any African street, we double-take on the dazzling colours and bold patterns of the majestically dressed women and men. Bodies jostle just as much as ideas. Along an electrifying main road, a group of artfully styled young people soar, heads held high. Lower down, a leather tanner-recycler adds the finishing touches to an innovative handbag; he enthusiastically combines wood, leather and scrap metal. A quick step to the side. In a little shop, a tailor embroiders a sublime kaftan. Once at the end of the street, you only want one thing: to go back. Returning after having left, the logic is in going and coming back. Africa Street is the spirit of the youth all over Africa. Proud and fearless, this new generation is reappropriating its heritage as well as influences from all over the world.They reveal themselves every day via the internet, media and in the suitcases of exiled loved ones returning home. With their ancestral culture and hyper- connectedness, feet anchored on the powerful earth with a head full of algorithms, young African designers eagerly adopt and reinterpret codes from the U.S., Asia, the Caribbean and Europe. Back and forth. Africa Street is a form of DJing applied to fashion; an impulse is launched and is filled with a thousand rhythms. On its return, it is rethought, magnified and then remixed ad infinitum for a transcendent result. Moving. Spontaneous. Fiercely lyrical. Africa Street fashion is an unavoidable and astute tool of self-affirmation in a space where community takes priority again and forever. Who’s Next and Premiere Classe will celebrate modern African identities, activism and the breathtaking savoir faire of brilliant designers from the four corners of Africa. To put the spotlight on Africa Street is to explicitly affirm that the streets of the 54 countries of the continent are an essential influence on fashion. Today, they are certainly its most jubilant image. Visit Who’s Next – Premiere Classe, Paris, Porte De Versailles, 7 th – 10 th September, 2018 and 18 th – 21 st January, 2019. Visit Premiere Classe Tuileries, Paris, Jardin Des Tuileries, 28 th September – 1 st October, 2018. Your Premiere Classe shopping list… IYU Nach Pink Powder Azuni Toolally Sophie Cano Senso