‘African Fashion’ exhibition to open at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum in June 2022

Contemporary African fashion will be on display at the upcoming, and major exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Based in London, the museum is the world’s largest museum of applied and decorative arts and design, as well as sculpture, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

Dubbed ‘African Fashion,’ it will “celebrate the global impact of fashion from the continent, displaying over 250 objects from the personal archives of the mid-20th century and contemporary fashion creatives, including designers, stylists and photographers.”

It will be the first time the designs of Kofi Ansah (Ghana), Shade Thomas-Fahm (Nigeria) and Chris Seydou (Mali) will be displayed in a London museum.

The exhibition will showcase the impact of the designers and how they attracted international attention with their work. It will open in June 2022.

The exhibition will centre ‘individual African voices and perspectives’, said the V&A’s Curator of African and African Diaspora Fashion

“Africa Fashion will celebrate the vitality and innovation of a selection of fashion creatives, exploring the work of the vanguard in the twentieth century and the creatives at the heart of this eclectic and cosmopolitan scene today,” explains Dr Christine Checinska, the curator of African and African Diaspora Fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

“We hope this exhibition will spark a renegotiation of the geography of fashion and become a game-changer for the field.”

Ryan Ansah, Joey Ansah & Tanoa Sasraku-Ansah, children of the late Ansah added:

“At the time of his passing, he was a man still in the prime of his career, bringing his designs to the catwalks and boutiques of Rome, New York and Johannesburg, in addition to his significant contributions to growing Ghana’s textile industry and his partnership work with contemporaries across the African continent.”