Tag african designers

Koya Nyangi Brings African Designers to Denver With Fashion Show at ReelWorks

by Linda L. Young DESIGNER
Do you know about African fashion? When Kenyan-born stylist and fashion blogger Koya Nyangi moved to Denver, she found that most people weren’t aware of the vibrant, creative fashion scene in Africa.

“There’s so much good stuff happening there,” she says, “and no one knows about it.”

Nyangi lived in London, Dubai and Bangalore before coming to Denver in 2018. After writing a series of articles called “A Hundred Days of Denver Fashion” on her website, Let Me Show You Different, and scrolling through Instagram looking at local fashion scene-makers, she saw an opportunity to bring awareness to what was missing.

She took it upon herself to become what she calls a “cultural ambassador” and bring African culture and fashion to Denver, starting with a shop-and-sip event in 2021 with Kenyan luxury jewelry designer Adele Dejak.

Nyangi, who now bills herself as CEO, founder and style curator

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Africa’s coolest fashion designers will soon have their clothes in a s

by Linda L. Young DESIGNER

When you visit a chic shopping area–say, the Meatpacking District in New York or the Champs Élysée in Paris–you’ll find the best-known luxury brands of our time, from Chanel to Tory Burch. The vast majority were founded by white designers, with a distinctly Western point of view.

Amira Rasool [Photo: The Folklore]

Amira Rasool thinks this is a problem; she’s on a mission to help African designers to take their place among their American and European counterparts. Four years ago, she launched The Folklore, a marketplace that curates top African designers, like Ahluwalia or Thebe Magugu. But on September 7th, the company is expanding beyond single item sales, and will soon be unveiling a new platform called The Folklore Connect that makes it easy for retailers to place bulk orders from these designers to get their clothes in front of new customers.

Rasool grew up loving fashion and

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