The Importance of Creating Research for African Fashion

For decades, the global fashion industry has referenced African fashion, but it has only sometimes done so correctly: mainly due to the need for more research on African fashion. Research for African fashion is expedient because it helps gather relevant and credible information about the industry. Likewise, people need to know they exist to build on practices or knowledge. When research about the fashion industry is scarce or missing, then the culture, heritage and knowledge about the African fashion industry are lost, and even academic fashion institutions will teach with a curriculum that is not holistic. Research is often the starting point of fashion education, and the need to broadly develop the research culture within African fashion education is now more critical than ever.