African Fashion Research Institute (AFRI)
The African Fashion Research Institute (AFRI) is a community of critical Southern African fashion thinkers co-founded in 2019 by Erica de Greef, who is a researcher, educator and curator based in South-Africa and Lesiba Mabitsela, who is a interdisciplinary artist and fashion practitioner. This community of artists, designers, academics, filmmakers, writers and activists aims to challenge, confront, explore and expand on definitions and archives of fashion. All its members work with fashion in ways that interrupt coloniality in terms of fashioning memory, making, wearing and meanings in the Global South. This includes decolonial activist Shayna Goncalves, wikimedia director Khanyi Mpumlwana, filmmakers and producers Siviwe James and Marcus Mabuselo, critical thinkers Bongani Tau and Russel Hlongwane, and cultural strategist heeten bhagat.
Moda e Decolonialidade: Encruzilhadas do Sul Global
Moda e Decolonialidade: Encruzilhadas do Sul Global (Fashion and Decoloniality: Global South Crossroads Collective) is associated to Human Rights, Culture and Identity working group at the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Rio de Janeiro (IFRJ), supported by National Council for Scientific and Techonological Development CNPq.
The Fashion and Decoloniality Collective is composed of interdisciplinary researchers from Brazilian and North American universities, whose purpose is to draw reflections on post-colonial and decolonial scholarship, pursuing critically and analytically ways that fashion has traditionally been approached in Brazil, as the conceptual framework used to analyze Brazilian fashion is based usually on the Eurocentric epistemic theory, concepts, issues and methodologies.
Contact: modaedecolonialidade@gmail.com
Fashion Liberation Collective North Africa (FLCNA)
We are the Fashion Liberation collective North Africa (FLCNA). The regional attribution is key, as we intend to expand and collaborate with other regions, interested in creating an independent, or parallel fashion system. The initial motivator that led to the creation of our collective, was the lack of ‘native’ texts, knowledge, opinions, documentation during the colonial and post colonial periods of North Africa. Histories had been erased and merged into one oriental fantasy. It is our mission to represent our region of north Africa, by first taking steps towards a decolonial fashion system that researches and analyses the past. We aim to bring to light the ‘true’ North African representations, in art and design. By owning and rewriting the gaps in our history, addressing the issues and creating a place for North African creativity we truly hope we can provide a wealth of material for design and creative student’s of the region. We aim to become scholars from North Africa , specialising in our roots. We hold events to provide a space for support and collaboration and hope this initiative will grow and add more diverse regions, hoping to create their own systems. It is our ambition that this will eventually play a role in the education of North African youth to come. That FLCNA will provide a platform for North African creatives to represent their heritage and showcase their work, by using our vast network and local workshops and makers. Be the change, be informed, be better. Join us!
Contact: fashionliberationcollective@gmail.com
Own Your Culture Kenya (OYC)
Own Your Culture (OYC) is an online platform created by Chepkemboi Mang’ira, who is a journalist and researcher based in Kenya. This online platform aims to promote, preserve and educate youth in Kenya and beyond on traditional jewellery and its relevance in the fashion of today. This virtual community is aimed at reimagining what fashion is when traditional jewellery is included and true to its own local context. This has been resulting in a new appreciation of traditional jewellery, with more designers drawing on their heritage to design and an online community that advocates for fashion inclusivity. There is an urgent need for self-representation and the influential power of digital media enables others to see themselves accurately represented. “We wanted to reclaim our heritage and digital media have given us the space to be.”
New Zealand Fashion Museum (NZFM)
The New Zealand Fashion Museum (NZFM) is a virtual fashion museum initiated in 2010 by Doris de Pont. With no fixed physical location, it is a museum dedicated to the documentation and sharing of New Zealand’s rich fashion past, making it relevant for the present and future. Established as a charitable trust, the museum holds “pop-up” exhibitions around New Zealand, produces relevant publications and runs as an online museum making New Zealand’s unique fashion identity visible and accessible to a broad audience. While it embraces the traditional purpose of a museum; to develop social knowledge and encourage discussion about society, culture and national identity, it breaks with the traditional museum form with its ability to be flexible, dynamic and a museum trendsetter. It chooses not to be represented by a grand building or a physical collection but instead by the quality of its research, publications, website and its award-winning exhibitions. One key pillar in seeking to create a comprehensive record of New Zealand’s fashion story is collaboration. By drawing on objects and knowledge held by individuals in the community at large and by working with many different institutions like art galleries, libraries, universities, and museums in sharing digital archives, realising projects and providing specialist curatorial services the NZFM is a multi-vocal platform.
Pakistan Collective for Decolonial Practice (PCDP)
The Pakistan Collective for Decolonial Practices (PCDP) was created by Sonya Battla after the first Global Fashioning Assembly in 2022. It is a not for profit group that aims to promote discussion on history with a focus on decolonisation in Pakistan. Decolonial approaches explore their positionality and perspective on the doctrine of discrimination, with its narratives based upon the principles of othering: civilisations, racial groups, religious differences are examples. These conversations are long overdue in Pakistan. Their mission is to forge new attitudes that are relevant for an independent Pakistan, 75 years after partition. They want to engage the bulging youth population that has seemed to avoid attachments to historical narratives. Over time, they want to forge a South Asian wing, with partnerships between similar groups in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Iran, Afghanistan and Nepal to learn how they are tackling similar questions.
Center for Research of Fashion and Clothing Croatia (CIMO)
The Centre for Research of Fashion and Clothing (CIMO) is a nonprofit organization created in 2013 and based in Zagreb, Croatia. CIMO was founded with the aim of researching the theoretical – scientific and creative aspects of fashion and clothing as part of contemporary visual culture. They aim to contextualize specific local practices and phenomena in relation to the global fashion system and academic fashion discourse. Some of the topics they cover are the rise and fall of the local textile industry, working class clothing practices, post socialist fashion histories, reinvention of different local craft traditions, socially engaged collaborative textile practice, etcetera. All their projects have a particular focus on the relation between politics and aesthetics, specifically politics of representation, and practices of self-colonization (Alexander Kiossev). This concept is enacted under political and cultural circumstances when the Other self evidently recognizes foreign cultural supremacy and voluntarily absorbs the basic values and categories of colonial Europe. This is especially visible in the field of fashion system as there is a strong polarization between the dominant fashion centre and other fashion peripheries.
Ghana International Fashion Team (GIFT)
The Ghana International Fashion Team (GiFT) GiFt is an informal group of three prominent Ghanaian Fashion Designers Beatrice “Bee” Arthur, Clara Pinkrah-Sam and Nuel Bans, whose reputations and vision extend beyond their native Ghana. Beatrice Bee Arthur is Russo-Ghanaian with no formal training in dressing-making nor fashion designing. After obtaining a BA in Sociology, Linguistics and Spanish Philology in 1999 at the University of Ghana, her keen interest in exploring Akan symbolism and African handwoven textiles turned her to designing a clothing line: B’ExotiQ by Bee Arthur in 2000. In 2001, her cosmopolitan collection won her the title of KORA All Africa Fashion Award Winner in Sun City, SA. Clara Pinkrah-Sam is the Ghanaian Founder and Creative Director of the luxury and ethically sustainable fashion brand Clatural. She is a practicing Pharmacist, a Medical Transcriptionist and an ICT Consultant with over two decades of working experience with the UNDP and the World Bank on both private and public sector projects. She is also a Business Coach and a Brand Expert. Nuel Bans is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of a Fashion Publication and agency Debonair Afrik., as well as a creative collector for The Style Lounge Platform – a platform which scouts and nurtures fashion talents in Africa. Nuel has always aimed at promoting the narrative of African Fashion and Culture for global impact and to give support the continent’s young and emerging fashion talents.
Colectivo Malvestidas
The desire and concern to explore and open up new discourses on fashion, clothing and the body led to the creation of the Malvestidas Collective in the city of Santiago de Chile in 2016. Since 2017 our most relevant activity has been producing Disobedient Fashion, an annual instance where academics, artists, designers and researchers from all over the world meet in activities that involve thinking about Latin America as a space for research and experiences. The headquarters of the meeting is the Museum of Contemporary Art of Santiago.
Abya Yala Coalition
The Abya Yala Coalition, initiated by Miguel Angel Gardetti in 2023, consists of coalitional members from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru. Their objective is to end removal and effacement of local and independent clothing production systems outside fashion. Those who are –or wish to be– outside Eurocentrism / Euro-Americanism. In other words, to appreciate decentralised and decolonial forms of creating and sharing knowledge about fashion in “the differences.” To identify the racism, violence and discrimination inherent to fashion production throughout the world, supporting such excessive production on both legal loopholes and loopholes related to recognition of the global south rights.
Based on our differences and a local and multidisciplinary approach, this coalition is characterised by these actions: resistance, questioning, challenging, exploring, expanding and transformation. This may pose a challenge: to rescue ancestral views, to revalue aboriginal philosophies, to draw attention to and revalue local ‘non-fashion’ designers/systems, and to find the proper way to expand this knowledge and give it a voice in both communication and academic spheres. To coalition holds meetings, discussions, presentations, assemblies and publications that will contribute to a policy of decolonial thinking reparations and awareness. They provide guidance and support to any person who feels excluded, marginalised and discriminated against in dominant fashion areas and institutions.
Canadian Fashion Scholars Network
Founded by Kat Sark in 2014, the Canadian Fashion Scholar Network is designed for fashion scholars, curators, and fashion professionals to collaborate on various research projects in different fields of fashion (fashion history, material culture, gender and fashion, intersectionality and decolonization, technology, sustainability, and urban fashion cultures) in universities, fashion schools, museums, fashion organizations, and the creative industries in Canada and beyond. Along with the annual symposia and events held across Canadian museums and universities, the network also connects members through its social media platforms, podcast, digital resources, and other tools to facilitate easier information and research exchange, and to allow fashion scholars to expand Fashion Studies in and beyond Canada. The annual symposium is designed to bring scholars and professionals together for networking and collaborative workshops. The goal is to inspire more collaboration and to make Fashion Studies more just. In 2020, the network shifted its focus from annual symposia and networking events to collaborative Digital Working Groups, where members and non-members could together construct resources for fashion education, curation, and research. The main focus of the working groups was on ethics, sustainability, and decolonization of fashion studies, fashion education, and fashion curation. We hope to be able to continue to grow and expand these resources.
Contact: ksark@sdu.dk
Research Collective for Decoloniality & Fashion 