[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/10058452 w=500&h=317]

It’s been a couple of years since Serge Mouangue, originally from Cameroon and now based in Tokyo where he works as a concept-car designer for Nissan, introduced us to Wafrica. From this recent video, which is part interview, part fashion show, it looks like the brand is still going strong.

I think this is quite cool. Mouangue has described it not as a “fusion,” but as a “third aesthetic.” Whatever it is, the clothes are gorgeous. And that’s all that needs to be said. Except, in the video, Mouangue also talks about the political aspect of Wafrica, which ruins it a bit for me.

Because, as Washington Post fashion editor Robin Givhan recently wrote, incorporating African textiles into fashion doesn’t always have to mean something:

‘… I long for the day when the explanation for embracing African aesthetics is simple and wholly mundane: They’re pretty.

It will be a fine day when the decision to mix Nigerian fabrics with gray flannel is no longer treated like fashion’s equivalent of a United Nations treaty…’

I’m not one to always agree with Givhan—she lost me with her defense of the “I Am African” campaign a few years ago—but, on this point, I think she’s right.

h/t My Global Hustle