Emerging Trends in African styling and Stylists

 Unarguably, significant changes which have occurred in the competitive scenario in which fashion companies, combined with deep transformation in the lifestyles of final consumers, and both stylists translate into the need to redefine the business models. Starting from a general overview of the emerging trends today affecting the fashion industry that is, using the African fashion industry as a case study, authorities in the world of fashion are on to analysis of the most important phenomena that are influencing this market and the drivers for long-lasting competitiveness: sustainability and attention to the so-called circular economy. 

According to authorities in fashion and observations, the younger generations are paying growing attention to these issues. In light of these considerations, relevance, sustainability and circular economy principles are influencing the perception of the fashion world among the new generations of consumers.

 After mapping the emerging trends in the fashion industry and analyzing the role of sustainability from both the demand and supply side, results describe the students’ behaviour as regards fashion’s emerging trends, with particular attention to sustainability issues and the application of circular economy principles. 

These results have proved to be consistent with the theoretical framework and confirm the relevance of sustainability issues in the fashion industry today in driving the demand of Generation Z, by considering a gender perspective. Moreover, the circular economy is descriptively analyzed with the aim to understand the relevance of the different facets for the entire sample of respondents.

Fashion in Africa engages with important issues about cultural complexity both past and present. With considerations of indigenous fashion through modernity to contemporary cosmopolitanism as Afropolitanism, an outlook of people of  African descent in Africa and elsewhere who are at ease between cultures, languages, and homes, in a global fashion culture. 

The emergence of indigenous fashion dwells on two distinct styles of men’s dress in Mali (for instance) that both rely on embroidery yet show different attitudes to innovation and the past in strongly regionally influenced garments without reference to the global fashion system. Shifting to French engagements with Africans lead to a colonial expositions of African dressed bodies and the artists and designers who combined, adopted, and invented African forms during the early decades of the 20th century and on, including Poirot, Saint Laurent, Galliano, and Gaultier. 

Using beads and bangles, earth tones, exposed flesh, geometric patterns, and flora and fauna, these designers depicted an imagined Africa, turning the continent into a brand rather than a location.

In particular, the most important changes affecting fashion demand can be summarized as follows: Attention to sustainability and circular economy. Sustainability has recently become an important new driver in consumers’ purchasing decisions. Phenomena such as the global population growth, climate change, and land and water scarcity have intensified in recent years and sustainability pressures relate both to product and production processes became more relevant in this industry. 

The speed of fast fashion, which has emerged in recent years as a new phenomenon with great impacts on the industry, amplifies problems, as it is causing high water consumption, high discharge of hazardous chemicals, an increase in waste, an increase in violations of human rights, together with bigger greenhouse gas emissions. 

Consumers are expecting transparency more and more across the entire value chain; they want to have more information about both the provenience of goods and the quality of materials used. Brands are responding to these challenges which have arisen from the demand side by trying to be more transparent, in many cases specifying the costs of materials, the mark-up, the costs of labor, transport, duties, and so on.

 Many cross-industry initiatives have helped companies to identify more sustainable work practices across the product life cycle and several brands have publicly fixed sustainability goals and set standards for imports of fabrics, and they are promoting initiatives for improving innovations in the materials used for producing fashion item. 

Name.: Godwin Afolabi 

 Code No.: OS/21B/1393 

 Course: Electrical and Electronics Engineering. 

 Institution: Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma

 State of Origin: Edo State