Africa Fashion – A Canadian Exclusive at McCord Stewart Museum in Fall 2025

The landmark exhibition arrives in Montreal after launching in London, then Brooklyn, Portland, Melbourne and Chicago.

Montreal, June 5, 2025 – This fall, the McCord Stewart Museum will present Africa Fashion—in an exclusive Canadian showing—from September 25, 2025, to February 1, 2026. Organized by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, this exhibition—one of the largest ever dedicated to African fashions—invites audiences to experience the creative energy of designers from across the African continent. From the turn of the 1960s to today, the exhibition features men’s, women’s and gender fluid fashion and accessories, jewellery, textiles, photographs, music and art that together bear witness to both the foundational role that textiles, clothing and body adornment have played in African cultures, and how fashion became a powerful force for post-colonial self-expression, drawing international attention for its limitless creativity, just like Africa itself.

The exhibition will celebrate the talent and influence of pioneers such as Naïma Bennis, Shade Thomas-Fahm, Chris Seydou, Kofi Ansah and Alphadi, while also featuring contemporary designers including Imane Ayissi, IAMISIGO, Moshions, Thebe Magugu and Sindiso Khumalo.

“Our guiding principle for Africa Fashion is the foregrounding of individual African voices and perspectives. The exhibition presents African fashions as a self-defining art form that reveals the richness and diversity of African histories and cultures. To showcase all fashions across such a vast region would be to attempt the impossible. Instead, Africa Fashion celebrates the vitality and innovation of a selection of fashion creatives, exploring the work of the vanguard in the twentieth century and the creatives at the heart of this eclectic and cosmopolitan scene today. We hope this exhibition will spark a renegotiation of the geography of fashion and become a game-changer for the field,” says Dr. Christine Checinska, Senior Curator of African and African Diaspora Textiles and Fashion, Victoria & Albert Museum.

“We are thrilled to collaborate once again with the prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum for our fourth partnership, centred around an exhibition that is as original as it is essential. This is the first time that the emergence, influence, ingenuity and unique energy of African fashion designers is being celebrated in an international exhibition. As a leading destination for fashion in Canada, with an outstanding collection and a strong commitment to intercultural dialogue, the McCord Stewart Museum could not miss the opportunity to present this exclusive Canadian showing. The exhibition will also be a chance to spotlight the talent of Afro-descendant designers from our own community, through a partnership with the Centre culturel Afro-canadien de Montréal (CCAM) for its Afrikana Ball on June 7,” says Anne Eschapasse, President and CEO.