Fashion

From striped tops, to berets, to ballerina flats, this week on French Connections we discuss which clothes are iconically French. We dive into the history of some of these sartorial splendours, as well as the French origins of the word fashion. We also look to the future and explore what the French school uniform could look like.

Norfolk couple wins legal fight against Louis Vuitton over name dispute. A Norfolk-based couple have won a fight against LVMH owner Bernard Arnault over the name of their gardening company.

Fashion designers from Africa are celebrated in Paris, London and New York. Whether avant-garde or traditionally inspired, these designers often share a focus on social and environmental sustainability. And they’re enjoying great successes.

Stella McCartney, Laurence Airline, Vaillant Studio and Litkovska are four fashion labels founded and run by women. Inspired by a desire to always strive for better, these designers propose solutions to the biggest challenges facing fashion today – everything from overconsumption and textile pollution to convoluted supply chains.

Fashion giant Zara is facing a heavy backlash and calls for a boycott over its latest ad campaign that resembles the destruction in Gaza. Some users are sharing an unrelated video to this boycott, that they claim shows "American people throwing all their Zara clothes in front of the company". We tell you where this video really comes from in this edition of Truth or Fake.

Japanese stylists have been making their mark on the Paris fashion scene since the 1980s, and continue to prove their mastery of the art of merging form and movement. Yohji Yamamoto, Yusuke Takahashi for CFCL, Maiko Kurogouchi and Satoshi Kondo for Issey Miyake – all these designers have a knack for taking the pulse of the planet, and, in turn, proposing new ways of dressing. We went to meet them in this edition of Fashion.

Togo's International Fashion Festival (FIMO), which recently celebrated its tenth anniversary in Lomé, has organised a catwalk show in Paris to promote African fashion. Jacques Logoh, FIMO's founder, is an outspoken advocate of fashion that's designed and produced on the African continent.

In this edition we meet three up-and-coming fashion designers. Victor Weinsanto studied fashion in Paris before going on to work with Jean-Paul Gaultier. He later went on to found his own exuberant label, this year inviting his drag queen friends to model his latest collection.

Denim can never go out of fashion but it’s waste is a global phenomenon. However, Uche Aladinma is on a mission to put an end to it. His brand focuses on creating fashionable and durable streetwear from recycled denim.

"Ressusciter la rose" (Revive the rose) is an original musical tribute, a marriage of fashion, music and design, to celebrate the centenary of the Villa Noailles. This collection of Cubist-inspired buildings in the south of France was designed in the 1930s by architect Robert Mallet-Stevens.

The French Mediterranean island of Corsica attracts two million holidaymakers every summer. To properly discover the so-called Isle of Beauty, what better way than on a cruise ship? Aboard a week-long cruise on La Belle des Océans, passengers explore Corsica's most beautiful beaches, as well as the local gastronomy and breathtaking panoramas – such as the medieval town of Bonifacio, perched 40 metres above the Mediterranean. FRANCE 24 brings you a little taste of summer.

As Africa's cultural heavyweights gather in Lagos for its 13th iconic Fashion Week, we speak to the event's founder about a unique UN study that lines the continent up as a major influence on the future of fashion. Also, the march of progress in Dakar tramples over the Senegalese capital's green spaces in a building boom. And as the numbers of Africa's penguins continue to plummet, scientists are warning that in little over a decade there may not be enough left to survive in the wild.