Africa Fashion

Come discover the landmark exhibition celebrating the irresistible creativity of the contemporary African fashion scene! The McCord Stewart Museum welcomes Africa Fashion from September 25, 2025, to February 1, 2026. Organized by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, the exhibition—one of the largest ever dedicated to the African fashion scene —showcases the creative energy of designers, makers and photographers from across the continent.

The only Canadian stop on an international tour that includes London, Brooklyn, Portland, Melbourne, and Chicago, the exhibition features some one hundred garments and accessories, as well as textiles, photographs and videos, from the early 1960s to today, illustrating how African fashions have drawn international attention and become a powerful force for post-colonial self-expression.

“Our guiding principle for Africa Fashion is the foregrounding of individual African voices and perspectives. The exhibition presents African fashions as a self-defining art form that reveals the richness and diversity of African histories and cultures. To showcase all fashions across such a vast region would be to attempt the impossible. Instead, Africa Fashion celebrates the vitality and innovation of a selection of fashion creatives, exploring the work of the vanguard in the twentieth century and the creatives at the heart of this eclectic and cosmopolitan scene today. We hope this exhibition will spark a renegotiation of the geography of fashion and become a game-changer for the field.” – Dr. Christine Checinska, Senior Curator of African and African Diaspora Textiles and Fashion, Victoria & Albert Museum.

Images courtesy of Musée McCord Stewart Museum, Montreal. Photo by Laura Dumitriu