Having originally debuted at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, the ‘Africa Fashion’ exhibit has now transferred to New York’s Brooklyn Museum where it seems to be benefitting from having a bit more room to breathe. Expansive in its coverage, it is a survey of the continent’s fashion output from 1950 to the present, and it demonstrates how African designers are pulling from different eras, modes of construction, and locations to create something entirely new. Co-curators Ernestine White-Mifetu and Annissa Malvoisin have selected more than 300 items – from textiles, jewellery, music and photography to video, sculpture, books and magazines, drawn both from the museum’s collection and further afield – to create a vibrant dreamscape on the ground-floor galleries.
