PRESS CONFERENCE

PRESS CONFERENCE

Author: with Beatrace Angut Oola July 24, 2025 Duration: 1:00:21

PRESS CONFERENCE UNGERMAN – UNDEUTSCH

Five Years After Black Lives Matter: What Has Truly Changed?

Tap in to hear voices that are not waiting for a seat at the table - We are building new rooms, new runways, new businesses, new realities. It’s about ownership! 

Five years after the global uprising under the banner of Black Lives Matter and in the heart of the UN Decade for People of African Descent, we pause to ask the urgent, uncomfortable, necessary question

 What has truly changed?

In this episode, recorded live during Fashion Africa Now’s third press conference, leading women of African descent from the creative industries and visionary business consultants — including Beatrace Oola, Kemi Fatoba, Meriem Lebdiri, Boitumelo Pooe, and Jacqueline Shaw — come together to reflect, reckon, and reimagine. The conversation is moderated by Prof. Marcellous Jones, with powerful written statements contributed by Dr. Mahret Ifeoma Kupka and Isi Ahmed. 

We explore the deep fault lines that still define the German fashion scene:
✔️ Selective visibility.
 ✔️ Token & Colorism inclusion.
 ✔️ Structural exclusion masked as progress.

Author Fatima El-Tayeb’s term UNGERMAN serves as a framework to unpack how racialized communities – especially Black people, Muslims, and Roma – continue to be treated as permanently foreign, while whiteness remains the silent standard of national identity.

🎧 Together, we ask:

  • Who gets to define African fashion?
  • Who profits from it – and who is systematically left out?
  • How can solidarity-based economies disrupt extractive systems?
  • What would real, structural investment in Black creatives in Germany look like?

We don't need more symbolic gestures. It is time for redistribution, recognition, and radical imagination because fashion is more than fabric. It is memory. It is resistance. It encompasses the past, present, and future.

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Hosted by Beatrace Angut Oola, FASHION | AFRICA | NOW moves beyond the runway to explore the intricate tapestry of style emerging from the continent and its global diaspora. Each episode is built on a simple, powerful idea: to understand where African fashion is going, you have to engage with the people who are actively shaping it, while honoring the deep cultural and historical currents that inform their work. You’ll hear from designers translating tradition into contemporary wear, historians unpacking the stories behind textiles, and business minds navigating the industry's unique opportunities and challenges. These conversations are less about trends and more about the systems, stories, and souls behind the garments. This podcast delves into the fusion of ideas across borders, examining how creativity intersects with entrepreneurship, cultural identity, and social commentary. It’s a space where the past is not just referenced but is in active dialogue with a dynamic present, all while asking critical questions about sustainability, ownership, and global influence. Tune in for a thoughtful, grounded exploration that treats African fashion as the serious, multifaceted global force it is-a living narrative being written stitch by stitch, conversation by conversation.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 24

FASHION | AFRICA | NOW
Podcast Episodes
Picture And Reconstruct Me Different: Delphine Diallo [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:21:06
Enjoy the flow that Senegalese-born New York-based international known photographer, Delphine Diallo, releases as she liberally shares her journey of enlightenment; working as a talented graphic designer in the Parisian…
Trade With Africa: Skander Negasi [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:00
Skander Negasi, CEO of Trade and Fairs GmbH, introduces us to the developing fashion and textile hub in East Africa. With manufacturing costs increasing in Europe and Asia, buyers are looking for new destinations. Follow…
The Power Of Technology And Its Digital Spaces: Seju Alero Mike [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:18
For our 19th Episode, we met with Seju Alero Mike, creative entrepreneur from Nigeria. She’s a hybrid of emerging talent of combined passion for the creative space and methodological expertise. In Seju’s case, it is root…
Young, Black And Reflecting Experiences: Soji Solarin [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:20
Soji Solarin is a Nigerian born contemporary fashion designer whose experience and perception on racism in Germany and world view offer a unique perspective on ‘Blackness’. Moving to America from Nigeria at the age of 13…
Shift African Aesthetics Into Design Spaces: Dr. Cornelia Lund [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:20
Meet the art, media and design theorist, curator and co-director of Fluctuating Images, a platform for media art and design, Dr. Cornelia Lund. Well-travelled and versed in the art and design world, Lund’s academic persp…
Explore and Reconnect Fashion and Music: Ibaaku [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:50
Ibaaku joins us for our #16episode all the way from Senegal - sonic poet, visual artist, composer, radio presenter and platform founder. This multi talented artist shares with us extensive insight into the African music…
Push For Your Dreams And Change The Narrative: YEGA [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:05
A career in fashion fuelled by passion, YEGA talks to Beatrace and gives the exposé on her spontaneous journey to becoming an established fashion illustrator. Luxury fashion, editorial and bespoke art, the unique combina…
Trade With Africa And Grow Local Production: Chebet Mutai [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:32
Chebet Mutai gives an exposé from a global perspective into the fashion and textile industry all the way from Nairobi, Kenya. Her break into the fashion scene has been solution-orientated. Chebet founded the luxury lifes…
Hubs Of Creativity Raising Cultural Pride: Carmen Hogg [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:18
The rise in black platforms promoting and celebrating Africa has been instrumental in raising cultural pride and and expectations of the Continent. Hubs of creativity, fashion, innovation business and entrepreneurship ar…
Change And Re-embark The Ecosystem: Ssonko Brian & Tazibone Solomon [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:08
Out of the Pearl of Africa is an erupting fashion scene. A Ugandan special with guests, Tazibone Solomon in Kampala and Ssonko Brian in Jinja, hosted by Beatrace Angut Oola out in the Diaspora in Germany, also originally…