The amount of talent that is cropping up these days, and young talent, especially among people of African descent is amazing. In a world of stodgy designers with massive studios, and 5^th avenue flagship stores, the generation aged 15 to 25 are the underdogs, making their designs reality with $15 sewing machines in the cramped spaces of their bedrooms and dorms, and now they’re ready to take over. Expect to see the fashion you know and love reinvented in wild ways to create a new kind of ‘street-meets-class-and-couture’ following. Young African designers are about to inject new life into the old guard, and it’s about time too. Forget the ‘Three Cs’…  their couture is the kind you can wear to the club in Lagos or Paris, and pretty much everywhere else that you want to be the envy and inspiration of all present.

And it’s not just designers that are taking the world by storm. Generation C (nicknamed C for Content because this generation is so driven to produce the media and products that it consumes) is dominating just about everything in the fashion industry. Models, publishers, editors, photographers, stylists, PR people, MCs, agents, enablers and assistants, you name it, some young fly African is doing it. I like to call them YFEs : Young Fashion Entrepreneurs - See a few faces you should look out for:

Model: Honorine Uwera, born in 1987.

Quirky Vintage Designers: Avant Gaudy.

(Vincent Choi; 23, Deborah & Jessica Umunnabuike; 23 & 21)

Stylist; Eniololade Dawodu, 23.

True, Africa has traditionally never gotten the recognition it duly deserves for inspiring some of the world’s greatest designers and being a source for exquisite and exotic fashion, but all that is about to become a thing of the past. A revolution is beginning; a new fashion order has been established, and WE are at the centre of it. More young people are taking the initiative to solve the problems that they face today, whether that problem is where to get the perfect vintage dress (the quirky vintage line Avant Gaudy is owned by two Nigerians) or one-of-a-kind shoes for a red carpet event. Move over people, the beautiful ones have just been born. 

To end on a sweeter note, the Feature of this week who is currently the main picture of FashionAfrica.com this week; Samata Angel is the poster child of YFE! Check her out HERE, or click the “BIG” picture on the homepage.

- Lotanna Odunze.

Tags: Intern Files