DOES HAVE AFRICA HAVE THE RESOURCES TO PROPERLY PRESERVE ITS TREASURES OF ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT?

by Oroma Elewa | February 20th, 2011 | 7 Comments

Photo: Mike Brown for Pop’Africana
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MIU MIU MUSING 2

by Oroma Elewa | February 14th, 2011 | 5 Comments

The second installation of Miu Miu musing tabled “constructive superficiality” as its topic. And with the likes of Andre Leone Talley as host, one can easily engage in dialogue for hours on end about fashion, the beauty of its culture, and the fabulous people who epitomize or have embodied its essence throughout time.

But for many like myself, this topic drove it home. Unless fashion, as I know of it today, is unique to a small group of persons born into wealth and luxury and unless depth and reason is striped from those who love this industry and are actively partaking in its culture, then the topic should peak interest.

How necessary is that amount of superficiality? Does the recognition derived from it so imperative that one crosses out reasoning? How then can a moral value be placed on something deemed so vain? What place do those who are not quite as superficial hold in this industry? How does one define the extent of their superficiality and when does it become non-constructive, and perhaps, destructive?

Fashion, strongly believed to cater not only to appearance but also one’s individualism and overall sense of being (which many can argue is constructive in itself), then comes under scrutiny when these questions are posed.
What are your thoughts?

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In the photo: Tavi, Elle Muliarchyk and Michael Meyer.
Photography by Oroma Elewa for Pop’Africana