Heritage Aims For Excellency: Awa Meité

01/27/21 • 48 min

Awa Meité, the Malian textile and fashion designer, epitomising power and humility. Awa debuted her unique handmade SS20 collection on the catwalks of Lagos Fashion Week, through unimagined fateful paths crossing. Awa Meité is known for her excellency and has been chosen to be part of Beyonce`s Black Is King visual album. This has given her and the community she pays homage to, the fabulously talented and dedicated cotton producers and craftsmen and women in Bamako, Mali, international recognition. Her creativity overflows into film-making, painting and styling, contributing to strengthening the creative economy in Mali. Awa provides insight into the international cotton and textile trade, narrating how she provides conscious solutions to her local community. A real gem, she represents handmade fashion, artisanship, craftsmanship made in Africa, sustainable and unique. “When you do the weaving you are writing a story...this person is buying a story...we are story-tellers.”

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A Fashion Business Built On Belonging: Audrey & Anne-Cecile Picardo

Two sisters take on Berlin, opening up their French fashion concept store La Case Paulette. These Reunion Islanders retell their journey from being ‘just a number' in the dog eat dog fashion industry of Paris, giving well rounded insight of their experiences as young black women living both in France and Germany and shifting into the pioneering space. “The Devil Wears Prada” was not just a movie, it’s the Paris fashion industry [Anne-Cécile], which they lived out working for world renowned brands, Givenchy. Audrey and Anne-Cécile Picardo, proud of their creole heritage, aim to bring a taste of the melting pot of La Reunion to their Berlin boutique, selling fashion, but also creating the nostalgia and familiarity of their roots. Recognising there are still things to learn, and the rise in sustainable fashion, “I’d rather spend a lot in one time knowing who made my clothes... now I’m in the position where I can choose and I’m in the position where I can offer this to people” [Audrey]

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Side Effects Of Black Intellectual Women: Dr Natasha A Kelly

Dialogues about Black aesthetics are necessary, according to Dr. Natasha A. Kelly. Dedicated to empowering and educating the Black community in Germany, the diaspora and strengthening the bond to Africa. Kelly is an academic, an author, a critical thinker, a visionary and an arts and culture shaker. You’ll hear her blunt perspective on institutional and structural racism, Black women and the Eurocentric gaze, digital racism, vector capitalism and tokenism - just some of the themes touched in this episode. “Colourism is a white aesthetic... Black is Black and Black is beautiful.” While Germany is one of the most progressive European countries, this does not apply when promoting the diversity of BIPoC in academia, fashion and media. However there are those whose work, voice and writings have been around for years and are worth engaging with, particularly after the reignited Black Lives Matter movement.

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