Probably to coincide with New York Fashion Week, Vice released the Nigerian installment of its “Fashion International” series. It’s not bad considering how Vice usually treats Africa (reference: Congo, Liberia and Ghana) and it definitely captures some of the energy of Nigeria. But it can’t help itself. We’re barely a minute into Vice’s report (“looking for something beautiful behind the depressing headlines”) on Nigeria’s 2011 fashion week when we’re told Lagos is troubled by “civil unrest, religious tension and wide-spread corruption” that “have lead to calls for the resignation of long-standing president Goodluck Jonathan.” Pretty prescient. The first Nigerian to get some words in is the “fantastically named” fashion week’s organizer Lexy Mojo-Eyes “who looks like Don King”; next up are the fashion week’s female models (but it quickly gets too “naked”, so the reporter moves on to the male models), wondering why they love “to represent Africa.”

It gets better after the 5:00 mark, pitting general male vanity against the recently proposed self-righteous anti-gay bill and homophobic sentiments in local press. (We’ll ignore how the reporter slides from ‘traditional African beauty’ over ‘pure Nigerian beauty’ to back-stage ‘pure Nigerian chaos’ — do French fashion back-stages look anything less chaotic?)

It’s a decent document (and rare in its portraying of gay figures –albeit in a stereotypical fashion context– where Nigerian pastors and politicians would rather see them outlawed).

One question though: what is it about “being on a yacht under African skies” that makes journalists “lose control of [their] senses”?

Further Reading

Kagame’s hidden war

Rwanda’s military deployments in Mozambique and its shadowy ties to M23 rebels in eastern Congo are not isolated interventions, rather part of a broader geopolitical strategy to expand its regional influence.

After the coups

Without institutional foundations or credible partners, the Alliance of Sahel States risks becoming the latest failed experiment in regional integration.

Whose game is remembered?

The Women’s Africa Cup of Nations opens in Morocco amid growing calls to preserve the stories, players, and legacy of the women who built the game—before they’re lost to erasure and algorithm alike.

Sovereignty or supremacy?

As far-right politics gain traction across the globe, some South Africans are embracing Trumpism not out of policy conviction but out of a deeper, more troubling identification.

From Cape To Cairo

When two Africans—one from the south, the other from the north—set out to cross the continent, they raised the question: how easy is it for an African to move in their own land?