One of Africa’s longest-running fashion exhibitions, the Dakar Fashion Week featuring designers from across the continent is back at the foot of a towering baobab tree outside Senegal’s capital Dakar.
The fashion exhibition which started on Saturday was forced outdoors in obedience to COVID-19 restrictions. It is to remind attendees of the fashion world’s responsibility for inclusive and sustainable fashion.
According to a 2015 study from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, textile production generates 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon emissions annually, and could account for more than a quarter of global emissions by 2050.
Known by her brand name Adama Paris, Ndiaye, the creator of the first Black Fashion Week show in the French capital chose inclusiveness as one of this year’s themes to contrast the often rigid beauty standards of Western fashion.
Ndiaye said, “I don’t want to live with fashion as the European diktat tells us to. I want women who represent so many different things, more than just bodies.”
Ndiaye sets high minimum quotas for female designers and once banned models using skin depigmentation cream to promote self-acceptance.
