Fashion

Singer Wizkid and actors Bright Vachirawit and Taylor Zakhar Perez were among the many celebrities attending the Burberry show on Monday at London Fashion Week.

July 2023 saw the third edition of a fashion competition in Paris called Africa Fashion Up. It aims to give a platform to young, up-and-coming African talent. Five designers from across the continent presented their collections at the Musée du Quai Branly, as they celebrated local craftsmanship with a global appeal. The winner, Aristide Loua, is an Ivorian who lived in France before returning to his home country, where he spent two years reacclimatising before embracing fashion. FRANCE 24 went to meet him and the other designers.

Haute Couture is part of French soft power: creating thousands of jobs and huge profits, a world away from a dramatic news cycle. This season's Paris Fashion Week was no exception. Dior's show saw Maria Grazia Chiuri reinventing the pleats of ancient Greece, while Iris van Herpen experimented with new shapes to allow movement. In their new collections, the two fashion houses are creating an ode to lightness – perhaps an antidote to our turbulent times?

For her fall show, Dior designer Maria Grazia Chiuri reined in the volumes often associated with haute couture fashion and sent out a line-up of slender dresses and capes in neutral tones and touches of gold and silver.

It was the fashion event of the season, if not the decade! Fashion journalists, buyers, celebrities and influencers from around the world descended on the French capital to see Paris's oldest bridge, le Pont Neuf, decked out in resplendent gold. The occasion was Pharrell Williams's first ever collection as head of menswear at Louis Vuitton. Another big celebrity draw elsewhere in Paris was the indefatigable Yohji Yamamoto, who's just a few months away from his 80th birthday. FRANCE 24 got a glimpse of the action.

The price estimate makes Gustav Klimt's final completed work "the most valuable ever to have been offered at auction in Europe," according to Sotheby's.

This year's Tunis Fashion Week took place at the Museum of Carthage, a recent recipient of some hefty funding from the European Union. The setting for the 14th edition was chosen by event founder Anis Montacer. He's launching his own label, Outa, with a collection made from recycled plastic waste.

An enormous part of a museum's success depends on its curators. At Paris's Palais Galliera fashion museum, curator Alexandre Samson has declared 1997 a year unparalleled in its influence on global fashion. It was the year Jean-Paul Gaultier designed the costumes for Luc Besson’s film "The Fifth Element", Comme des Garçons and Martin Margiela revealed iconic collections and Tom Ford embraced the porno-chic aesthetic at Gucci.

What are the hidden facets of today's fashion designers? Research and exploration, which spark creativity. Young Ukrainian designer Ivan Frolov digs deep into our propensity to seek the source of our desires. Dutch designer Iris van Herpen immerses herself in the depths of the ocean.

Modest fashion is a way of dressing that respects specific clothing requirements for reasons of faith and also personal preference. The market for modest fashion is huge – and it's only getting bigger, with both designers and influencers keen to get in on the action. FRANCE 24 went to check out the second edition of Paris Modest Fashion Week.

Sewing is a gift from God and the result of hard work for this self-taught Mozambican seamstress. Isabel Davide's next step is to establish her own fashion brand.

In Lomé, the capital of Togo, Jacques Logoh has good reason to be cheerful. The young designer and founder of the Togo International Fashion Festival has made it his mission to ensure the event embodies the values of diversity. Alex and Kim are androgynous models. They're walking for – among others – Fauvette Nacto, in a show that's a celebration of marriage in all its forms.