https://www.youtube.com/embed/TC9gGBwISUw
It is our time, and it's been our time for a long time, so now we need to own it. Chanel is coming to Dakar, and that's a sign that we are out there and actually, we don't even have to go to them. They're coming to us. Being in it, being in, like, submerged in the culture, the energy is just different, bro. I always say that Africans are born with a zest for life and they have art in their blood. So it's innate.
Senegalese culture is all about celebration. I mean, we celebrate everything and anything. Senegal is not, like, the biggest economy country in Africa, but is one of the most attractive country fashion-wise. There's very rarely that notion of being overdressed. When you present yourself to a celebration or wherever, it's really meaningful for people to be dressed and dressed well. My name is Selly Raby Kane. I'm a fashion designer and filmmaker. I'm from Dakar. I wanted to be a fashion designer since I was a little kid. That's the only word that I knew. Being a designer is what I wanted to do. Opening the shop in Dakar, I think it was late 2017, and it was amazing. I wanted that black and white thing happening. I commissioned one of my artist friend to just write some, like, automatic thoughts and the space he was in at the time.
Every Senegalese woman you meet is a fashion designer. We buy clothes, but most of the time we actually get our clothes made and everyone goes to the tailor at the corner of the street. And it's the culture of how things are made. That's how I learnt about fashion. My name is Diarra Bousso, and I am the founder of DIARRABLU. I see art in numbers and shapes and patterns, and DIARRABLU was the place where I could merge those interests and create something tangible. My background is in mathematics. I never studied fashion or art. It's kind of something that's just always had in my heart.
I am not a traditional designer. I don't even know the rules, so I break them all the time. And I think that's what makes my work special. I have been to... Oh, sorry. You know I'm a designer. I can only think for, like, 2 seconds. My name is Mimi Plange, and I'm a fashion designer. And I'm here in Gorée Island for the 20th anniversary of Adama Paris' Dakar Fashion Week. I think that I'm learning a lot more about the traditions of Senegalese fashion, which I didn't know the specifics of certain things that they were into as a culture. I think the women tend to love a lot of colour. The leather work in Senegal is, like, crazy. They do amazing bags, and that's what we do too. So I see a lot of similarities there. Hi, I am Adama Paris. I'm a fashion designer from Senegal, and I'm also the founder and the producer of Dakar Fashion Week. When it was 20 years ago, and yes, I was a young girl and I had this dream of bringing together and giving a platform to young African designers.
My aim was to bring and to show African fashion to the world. So my name is Adebayo Oke-Lawal and I'm the Creative Director of ORANGE CULTURE NIGERIA. I'm looking forward to seeing all the designers, I guess, showing. Just seeing people from Ghana, from South Africa, seeing their work, and also just the united spirit of all of us just being here together, working together, celebrating together. I think that that's just so beautiful. Adama has created something so unique and given people so much hope and dreams. Like, if you're a model, Fashion Week is where you start to feel like you're credible. If you're a makeup artist, Fashion Week is where you start. And having that place to go to and not only meet other like minded individuals, but feel celebrated and feel valid and a lot of press comes to that, is something really important for us. My name is Pharrell Williams. I've had the honor and the privilege to be invited to the Chanel show here in Dakar, in this beautiful continent called Africa.
This building was the Ancien Palais de Justice. That's my English accent for French wording. But yeah, it's my distinct honour and pleasure to be here. My name is Malick Bodian. I am a model and photographer, and I'm from Senegal. I've been doing some documentary and fashion photographs for Chanel. As a model, when I travel, sometimes with show, I barely see this kind of relationship, which I found very, very interesting for the country. I think this show is not only for Senegal, it's also for Africa.
You know, it's a very good thing. You know, it's going to give so much hope to so many designers that always dream this and that never thought it will be possible. What I was interested in when reading the book was that they are starting a collaboration with an internship residency-type programme with their 19M. So it's not just a show. It's like a long term partnership and collaboration in the creative space. And I think more of that would be really beautiful because the stories we have to tell are already here. There were as well, a few people that were worried, that didn't understand why Chanel was coming or the 19M coming, what conversation was going to happen, how is the dynamic? And I also know people that chose not to go to the show and not to collaborate. So that as well exists. My position is that it's something that is good for the creatives and for the business of the creatives. And as long as the collaboration is horizontal, I don't see why Dakar cannot collaborate with any other city of the world.
I'm giving you long answers, right? It's good? I speak a lot. What I'm wearing here is an interpretation of a djellaba. It's a masculine piece. Usually it's worn for prayer. Yeah, I just wanted to take that shape. And really this was made for me. I think what makes me proud to be an African designer is really just having the ability to shape my own narrative. I think for many years we've always been told who we are and how we're supposed to present ourselves. But being able to present myself and choose how my narrative is, sort of, exported to the world, I feel like is such a privilege, and I'm thankful for that. This is one of my favorite prints called Tukki Noir. And Tukki means to travel in Senegal or to voyage. The idea of traveling for campaigns around the world and showing our own Africa in different places, I call it: African Voyage.
And this was just celebrating random paths that we take to get there. Again, using math and geometry to create it. Let's wait, because it's the... There are people who live upstairs and I think they are cooking. So we just have to give them, like, five minutes. So fashion and creativity is at the heart of how Senegalese women celebrate themselves every single day. It's like a form of self love, I would say it's our sixth love language. This is the steaming room and this is the workshop. Peace be with you. How are you? I want them to feel free. I want people to feel free when they wear DIARRABLU. I want them to feel happy. It's like the happy clothes, the prints, the memories, and that's what I want.
It's like, I create this beautiful thing with so many different parts of my identities and experiences and to see people wear it around the world as they travel and celebrate meaningful moments, it means so much to me. Gorée is just like part of our story, part of our Black story, and we share that with lots of Black people in the world. And I think that 20 years of celebrating fashion and expression of art, we needed to kind of wipe that sore and difficult past and just to put joy and colour and beauty and to bring back to us to just own back what they took from us. Gorée Island was like a port for a lot of slavery in the past. And I think that being able to be here and celebrate excellence in so many ways and being here to celebrate all of the different voices that have been able to come through all the adversity and still shine and still create with very little.
For me, it just... It shows like the trajectory and the growth and the opportunity and everything that lies within this continent. It's fair to say Gorée is an island that has a special thing the whole world comes to see it So it also allows us to be able to communicate with the whole world and on the spot, and also share our history. I had a conversation with Karl years ago when he was alive about bringing the house to Africa for the first time.
And so it was this group effort, but it was a dream of mine to be somewhere here. And I'm so glad that they chose Senegal, because the history of how it was once occupied by the Portuguese, by the Dutch and by France, obviously. I thought it was incredibly poetic and symbolic that a French maison decided to come back here and not just like with opportunity of equality, but actually something better, like equity, to really work with the people here. Because the soil is rich, the culture is rich, and the history is rich. To me, creating is just an extension of my life. I was lucky enough to have my parents that were diplomats. So from a young age, I travelled the world with them, and I saw a big designer fashion show, and I was like, "Mum, I want to do that".
She was like, "Oh, you want to be a model cos you skinny?" I was like, "No!" The end goal was always to own our ecosystem and to own our story and to to just do us by us, for the world. The Western validation question is something that is not relevant for my generation, and it's something that we don't really care about because it's just not natural to have so much focus on to how you are seen, how you are perceived, and trying to debunk those stereotypes all the time. It's a huge loss of energy and it's a huge loss of just... time. That time can be invested into working on what we are trying to achieve, how we are trying to excavate some tools from our own Senegalese African archive to just build the future that we envision.
There's an obsession for the city, there's an obsession for Senegal's immaterial heritage, and there's an obsession for worlds we cannot see, for the invisible, for the mystical, for initiatory journeys. I'm very much gravitating around those three poles. I wouldn't see why anyone would not, as a luxury brand, want to come to Africa because it's the youngest continent that's here. And Dakar itself, being French speaking, there's a background connection to France. It makes sense. Their presence here is going to definitely bring awareness of what is happening here. I'm looking forward to more relationships, more collaborations, and I'm hoping that Chanel will find time to work with the lot of us here as well. Say, if anything, maybe that's it.
If you truly believe in something and you truly care about it, and you can do it, and especially being African, being Black, being Muslim, I mean, I have every single title that makes me a failure by default in society, if I look at how we are categorized. Yet I'm going to make it. And I think that's the legacy I want to make. That those titles don't really stop you, but those different facets of your identity can really enrich whatever you make out of it. That it's still true to me. A proud Senegalese woman who grew up here in Dakar and who lives in Silicon Valley, who can use math and algorithms to create clothes made by artisans here that are sold around the world. Like, it's a story that just makes no sense at all when you put it together, but it actually does. And that's the kind of stories I want to tell. One day I watched a movie, and it's about this young writer, and he was like, "I'm going to go travel to this country to make great books".
And I remember his father telling him, "Why are you going away?" "You have so much stories here". And I think for a lot of young designers and artists, it's confirmation that they don't need to travel so far to make beautiful things and inspire things. I'm trying to leave not only a legacy, I'm trying to teach this young generation, because when I started, I was a young girl with a dream. I just want people to believe in African dreams. It is our time, and it's been our time for a long time. I think that once it grows here, I think that then it needs to move overseas and start becoming more global and bringing other people into our stories. Because it shouldn't just be for us, it should be for the world. And I do hope that it does inspire people to realize that we are enough again. But I think the long term solution really is training, and it's opportunities for those people to feel like they can earn a living wage being an artisan, that they can be celebrated, they can be valid.
One of the most powerful resources that the continent of Africa has is untapped potential. In West Africa, in Senegal, most talented people, they all left. Since I've been in Europe, I always dream to come back and do something here and work here. And it gives me a lot of hope and a confirmation of a hope that I had, of there's a future here that we can build, like, especially as the young people, instead of always seeing hope somewhere else.
We know what's happened before, but what we want is to write our story. It can be beautiful, it can be dramatic, it can be anything. We just embrace the journey. Thank you very much.
https://howtoplaythedjembedrums.com/i-d-meets-the-creatives-leading-dakars-fashion-scene/
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