Fashion and Styles in African Cities. Case Studies from Douala and Lagos

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Kerstin Pinther
• Subject Area: Art History ; African, American and Oceania Studies ; Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 322578602

The aim of this interdisciplinary project, which is situated at the intersection of art history, anthropology of art and fashion and textile studies, is to uncover the multifaceted interrelationships between fashion and urbanity using the examples of Douala and Lagos. The importance of urbanity has long been recognized and, in part, researched, in terms of the development of fashion in the Euro-American context. However, no scholarship has, as yet, empirically and theoretically demonstrated the entangled interwoven relationships between fashion worlds and urban cultures in Africa. We employ a methodology that y to identify the historical connections and regional differences encompasses art historical, ethnographic and cultural studies approaches. Thus, fashion will not be critiqued, as is so often the case, as superficial and vain. Rather, in keeping with Nuttal's (2008) innovative work, fashion is understood as an interface between significant spheres of contemporary culture. In this spirit the project has four related case studies. Each will examine different aspects of metropolitan fashion practices and designs within site-specific systems of production, identity construction. This starting point generates questions regarding the aesthetic and symbolic aspects of fashion and its contextualization as well as medial presentations. How is the city - its visual culture, its specific history - inscribed into fashion? How do limited resources and the lack of state support manifest within the fashion sector in production, as well as in a genuine urban aesthetic? In keeping with a "spatial turn", a strategy that has been adopted in fashion studies as well, we inquire into the specific places of fashion, its aesthetic and its site-specific forms of presentation. Further research questions speak to specific fashion worlds and its actors: What role does fashion play in the construction of identity and self-representation of the urban middle class, the elite and youth culture? Furthermore, we consider the transnational relationships of fashion designers and producers, processes of globalization along with the growing importance of new media and online social networks. This cooperative project is composed of four individual studies. A. Schemmel addresses the history, aesthetics and practice of fashion in Douala. Correspondingly, in case study two, B. Ndjio (University of Douala) examines fashion as a means of social distinction for urban youths. Additionally, M. Oberhofer will contribute a historical perspective, analyzing fashionable photography in Douala. The third case study (H. Mezger) is dedicated to the biographies, aesthetics and the urban references of fashion producers in Lagos, in both local and transnational contexts. In the fourth, joint case study F. Ugiomoh (University of Port Harcourt) and K. Pinther research the medial representation of fashion in magazines, photographs and fashion blogs since the 1960s.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Cameroon, Nigeria
• International Co-Applicants: Professor Basile Ndjio, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Frank Agbiyoa Omoh Ugiomoh