What comes to mind when you hear “African fashion”?
Now, what about “made in Africa”?
If your answers are different, trust me you are not alone.
We asked this question to a handful of people recently, designers in Lagos, consumers in New York and even colleagues at work. A few people in the diaspora on X who’d been talking about this exact tension.
One designer said: “African fashion is ours. It’s identity. It’s authorship. Made in Africa feels like… geography. Like we’re just the factory.”
On X, Cameroonian designer Patience Tatah captured another side of this: “’Made in Africa’ is a superpower you are erasing. Shoppers now pay a premium for authenticity. But many African brands strip their identity afraid it signals low quality. A confident nod to local heritage builds emotional connection.”
The tension is real. Some see “made in Africa” as geography that reduces us to factories. Others see it as a badge of authenticity and origin that shouldn’t be hidden. Neither phrase really captures what we’re doing. Both feel like they were made for someone else’s comfort. But here’s the reality that makes this urgent:
Someone else posted on X: “Over 50% of the clothing worn by Africans is designed and produced outside the continent. In a region with over 1.5 billion people, the fashion industry remains dominated by external influence — foreign designs, foreign manufacturing, and foreign profit.”
Let that sink in.
More than half the clothes worn by Africans aren’t made here. Aren’t designed here. The profit doesn’t stay here.
The tweet continued: “While there’s growing pride in African fashion, much of it remains limited to high-end markets, inaccessible to the everyday consumer. The challenge isn’t creativity — Africa is rich with talent. The challenge is scale, affordability, and ownership.”
This is the context in which we’re debating “African fashion” vs “made in Africa.” It’s not just semantic. It’s economical, it is about who controls the industry and who benefits from it.
“African fashion” centers creativity. It suggests a design philosophy rooted in culture, history, tradition. It’s about who made it and why it looks the way it does. It positions Africa as the source, not just of labor, but of vision.
“Made in Africa” centers production. It’s a location stamp. And for many, it carries associations that African creatives have spent years trying to shake: charity narratives, low-cost expectations, the social enterprise framing that treats Africa as a site to be “helped” rather than a creative force to be respected.
There’s a reason “made in Africa” can feel loaded.
For decades, Western brands used the phrase as shorthand for ethical sourcing, usually paired with stories of empowerment and uplifting communities. The framing was always outward-facing: Look what we’re doing for them. It positioned African labor as something to feel good about consuming. Not because the product was exceptional. But because buying it was the right thing to do.
And that’s the problem. African designers don’t need pity purchases. They need to be seen as innovators. As the originators of techniques that global fashion has been borrowing or stealing without credit.
But not everyone sees it that way. Some designers wear “made in Africa” as a badge. It’s a refusal to hide origin. It’s a response to decades of Western brands sourcing from the continent while erasing any mention of where things actually came from.
One person we spoke with put it this way: “When I say made in Africa, I’m saying: yes, this was made here. And that’s something to be proud of. Not something to obscure.” There’s power in that claim. Especially when so much of global manufacturing happens in the shadows. When supply chains are deliberately opaque. When consumers have no idea where their clothes come from.
“Made in Africa” makes the invisible visible. And for brands building local ecosystems, creating jobs, training artisans, keeping value on the continent that transparency matters.
That’s the real tension.
“African fashion” exists as a term because the global industry has spent centuries treating African design as “ethnic” or “craft”, never just fashion. The need to specify reveals who the imagined audience is.
“Made in Africa” carries weight because consumers have been trained to see the continent through a deficit lens. As a place that needs saving. Not as a hub of creativity, sophistication, and innovation.
Both phrases are shaped by the same problem: an industry that has relegated African creativity to the margins and then acted surprised when African designers refused to stay there.
I keep thinking about something Beatrace Angut Oola wrote, “African fashion is a visualization of transformed traditions representing the African lifestyle from an African/Afro-diaspora perspective.”
That definition doesn’t resolve the tension. But it holds space for it. Because maybe the answer isn’t choosing one phrase over the other. Maybe it’s recognizing that neither fully captures what’s happening, the explosion of talent, the diversity of aesthetics, the refusal to fit into categories designed by someone else.
So here’s where we land, this isn’t a debate to resolve. It’s a conversation to keep having, because the fact that we’re asking these questions at all signals a shift. African designers are no longer waiting for permission to define themselves. They’re doing it on their own terms, in their own words, whether the rest of the industry catches up or not.
Which phrase resonates with you, and why?
Drop your thoughts below. This isn’t a question we’re trying to answer for you.
