Africa is home to the fastest growing cities. By 2050, cities like Lagos and Kinshasa and Cairo will be global mega cities, each holding over 30 million inhabitants.
More and more brands are repping Africa – by representing African cities, African countries and the continent overall on their designs. Out of pride for their heritage, their country of origin, or just to educate and to make a statement. But it is not just a personal statement: “Africa rising” and “Africa now” are not mere trendy claims, they reflect how the continent is continuously working on moving forward. And yes, there are still many challenges, but personally I like to focus on the positive messages of artists, creatives and entrepreneurs that are adding new and different images to what is commonly associated with “Africa”.
The latest African City Bag rocks 34 city names across the African continent. What started as a simple tote as turned into a high-end canvas bag with leather applications. Great to rep your city and if your city isn’t included, this bag is also great to make a Pan-African statement. Perfect for travels!
Orijin Boutique is taking backpacks to a new level with the leather Africa bag. I mean hello, how unique and awesome is this Africa-shaped rucksack made out of leather. What I really like is that the straps are adjustable so that one can wear he Africa bag also over the shoulder and the backpack-style isn’t a must have. Love!
Made in Africa Tops by Fashizblack
Feel like repping an African City on a jumper or T-shirt then head over to African Fashion Magazine Fashizblack who offer different tops with popular cities on it and the cities come in African Print designs, so that is a nice twist.
Addis Hat & African AF T-Shirts
I really like the Addis hats and T-Shirts from okayafrica. Such a great twist on the adidas logo. Besides the hats the shop offers a lot of African AF wear – I guess that stands for African As Fuck, so in Millennia-speak a reinforcement of being African.
I stumbled over this project on Twitter and this is just one of these great examples to me how creative Africans take ownership of how their city, their country is being represented and share their different perspectives and images in order to show “what is presented to the world versus what is.” After a successful Kickstarter campaign, “the project has turned into a road trip to explore and visually document different cities across Africa, their people, sub-cultures and built environment.”
The Africa Pillow is a great interior design highlight and statement piece. This pillow will look fantastic on your sofa or on your bed. I ordered one as a gift to someone, let’s see if I will manage to actually give it away or if I just have to keep it.
