Fashioning Afropolitan Kenya: Creativity, Style & the Politics of Belonging

Organised by CUBE research centre at London Metropolitan University and commissioned for the UK/Kenya Season 2025 by the Africa Centre, on behalf of the British Council, this event convened a conversation between Kenyan fashion consultant and innovator Sunny Dolat, keynote respondent Christine Checinska, and discussant Wally Mbassi Elong.

We examined how fashion in Kenya has evolved into a medium through which questions of identity, belonging, and modernity are expressed and contested. The event moved from the aesthetics of post-independence liberation to the dynamic creativity of today’s Afropolitan generation, tracing how clothing serves not only as a marker of taste but also as a visual language of self-definition and collective imagination. By framing fashion through the lens of Afropolitanism, we explored how designers, stylists, and image-makers negotiate the intersections of heritage, cosmopolitanism, and global Black identity.

Discussion considered the tensions that emerge—between authenticity and aspiration, visibility and policing, rootedness and mobility—to reveal how style may become an archive of history and an instrument of agency. With a focus on Kenya, the event engaged with Afropolitan exchanges between traditional and cutting-edge concepts. The intention was to position fashion and innovation from Nairobi as part of a global dialogue around Kenyan, continental African, and diasporic style as indicative of the global reach of the ‘African moment’ of our times.

By confounding stereotypes and demonstrating the ways in which cultural authenticity can sit alongside world class innovation, the event set out to foreground fashion within this trajectory. Equally important is the capacity of fashion to signify belonging. What are the current concerns, among those who wear, design, or engage with ‘African fashion’, about the commonalities and differences on the street as well as on the catwalk? We explored crossings, overlaps and ambiguities between popular culture and ‘high fashion’ in terms of style, design, innovation, and curatorial vision.

As the final event in the British Council’s UK/Kenya Season 2025, the occasion offered an opportunity to acknowledge the variety, range and richness of events that have taken place across the country and beyond. All registrants wre invited to join a closing reception and celebratory gathering over two floors of the Africa Centre attended by VIP Guests representing the cultural and regional institutions behind the initiative with closing remarks from key representatives of relevant stakeholders including the British Council.

Guests at the event had an opportunity to view the Africa Centre’s exhibition Trailblazers by Ghanaian British Artist Mary Owusu Hirsch. Hirsch combines modern screen prints with traditional Ghanaian Adinkra symbols to celebrate influential figures from the African Diaspora who are pioneering in their work in the UK.

Speakers

Sunny Dolat

Sunny Dolat is a Kenyan cultural producer, creative director, and fashion curator whose interdisciplinary practice explores the intersections of art, design, and critical cultural inquiry. A co-founder of the Nest Collective, his work spans curation, visual art, installation, and performance, examining how image, adornment, and representation shape identity and belonging across contemporary African and diasporic contexts. His seminal publication Not African Enough (2016) challenged reductive notions of “African fashion,” while his textile study Nanga explored cloth as a vessel of imagination and identity. Curatorial highlights include Fashioning a Nation (Goethe-Institut Nairobi, 2024), Tradition(al) (Circle Art Gallery, 2024), and the Kenya Pavilion at the International Fashion Showcase (Somerset House, 2019). Dolat’s installation In Their Finest Robes, The Children Shall Return (N’gola Biennial, 2019) presented 55 ensembles representing Africa and its diaspora. He has contributed to major international exhibitions including Africa Fashion (V&A), State of Fashion 2024 (Arnhem), and Dirty Habits (Barbican, 2025).

Christine Checinska

Dr Christine Checinska is an artist, designer, curator and storyteller. She is the V&A’s Senior Curator of Africa and Diaspora Textiles and Fashion, and Lead Curator of the international touring exhibition Africa Fashion. She was a member of the Costume Institute at the Met’s curatorial Advisory Committee for the 2025 show Superfine: Tailoring Black Style. She is a Visiting Research Fellow at Yale Centre for British Art and a Research Associate at VIAD, University of Johannesburg. Checinska exhibited work in the group show The Missing Thread, Somerset House, London, 2023-2024. She was a co-curator of Makers Eye: Stories of Craft, Crafts Council Gallery, London, 2021. Her publications include ‘Material Practices of Caribbean Artists Throughout the Diaspora’, in Crafted Kinship, Marlene Barnett (ed.), 2024. In 2016, she delivered the TedxTalk Disobedient Dress: Fashion as Everyday Activism. An advocate of creativity through art, design and craft, she serves on the boards of the British Textile Biennial and the Textile Society of America.

Dr Wally Mbassi Elong

Dr Wally Mbassi Elong has been an Associate Lecturer in Sociology at London Metropolitan University, specialising in Media, Communications, and Cultural Studies. Among his teaching contributions is a module developed for undergraduate sociology students titled "Resistance, Creativity and Joy in the Capital” that explores how social, historical and political factors have shaped the experiences of African and Caribbean people in London. His diverse research interests include sports fandom studies, the globalisation and the media, digital cultures, postcolonial studies, and gender and sexuality. He is a member of the London Afropolitan project, and is a researcher on the Arsenal Gaygooners Oral History Project, which explores the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ Arsenal supporters and promotes inclusivity within football fandom. His doctoral research examined the construction of a West African online football fandom identity via social media, highlighting his expertise in cultural identity and digital platforms.

Chair

Matthew Barac

Matthew Barac is Professor of Architecture and Urban Culture at London Metropolitan University and leads the PhD programme at the School of Art, Architecture and Design. He was the School Research Leader 2018-21, chaired the Unit of Assessment (UoA) panel 32: "Art and Design: History, Theory and Practice" for the University's submission to REF 2021: Research Excellence Framework, and is Director of CUBE: Centre for Urban and Built Ecologies. He established the research theme of Afropolitan studies at CUBE which has given rise to several projects including Afropolitan Architecture, London Afropolitan, and the UK/Kenya Season 2025 commission.

This event has been conceptualised and delivered by Dr Harriet McKay and Prof. Matthew Barac at CUBE: Centre for Urban and Built Ecologies. The project’s Research Assistant is Magda Olchawska, who leads on film production as well as web content management. The event would not have been possible without the support of the season’s Associate Producer Michael Burgess, and the Africa Centre’s programme Director Fadil Elobeid.