african websites highlight designers across continent

Ask the average person who some of the top designers in the fashion industry are and the names and locations will stream like clock work: Dolce & Gabbana, Ralph Lauren, Alexander McQueen, France, Italy, London.  In main stream marketing media, few cultures dominate the fashion world and the industry has been known for minority designers and models to crack and make it on a household name level, especially underground African designers.  It didn’t help when earlier this year Vogue shut down the idea of Vogue Africa (despite their being Vogues on almost every other continent.  Using social media and the web, writers have been creating sites like Haute Fashion Africa and Ciaafrique to break through the industry and put African fashion on the map.

African Website Highlight Designers Across Continent

Words AP staff

On Haute Fashion, there collection of interviews range from 20-year-old designer, Orire Omatsola, who just released Re Bahia (named after an emerging Nigerian brand) to Nigerian designer Oroma Cookey-Gam, who is designer and creative director of ALALI Boutique, known for their clothes throughout the Nigerian fashion industry.

On the homepage, there is even a designer directory, with the names of the most noted designers in the African fashion scene. Smaller scale blog, Ciaafrique, also covers designer interviews and new trends, but it also reviews magazine articles published of African designers along with coverage of African models.  The photo below was posted on Ciaafrique’s site as they highlighted two Sudanese models, Ajak Deng and Ataui Deng, in Arise Magazine, another curated publication that focuses on African fashion, art, music, and culture.

One of the best links we found on Ciaafrique, was the top African designer’s look books for 2011.  One line, Jewel by Lisa, has used the latest trend of contemporary African prints in modern cuts, for her Spring 2011 collection, Global Minimialism, and is covered on Ciaafrique as well. 

As new sites and blogs that are carefully curated pop up on the internet, with time more African designers will make name for themselves around the world.