British Council in fashion partnership with Chenesai

FASHION house Chenesai has announced its latest collaboration initiative called Fashion Futures in partnership with the British Council and Natal Media.

Under the new partnership, Chenesai and British Council will be creating fashion content for the United Kingdom, Malawi, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

Fashion Futures is a femaleled multinational project curated by Chenesai Mukora-Mangoma, to foster creative engagement for change and to encourage collaboration by bringing together four content creators from varied artistic genres including fashion, beauty, visual art and anthropology.

Mukora-Mangoma said the team includes Zimbabwean artist Lucia Nhamo, British Ghanaian writer, curator and visual anthropologist Adoja Armah, Malawian beauty and wellness expect Thokozani Phiri and Namibian design and fashion creative Leah Misika.

“The project falls in line with British Council priority areas, which include youth empowerment and development thus exposing young people to the importance of developing sustainable fashion sectors.

“The body of work produced hopes to contribute to the framing of sustainable policy that will ensure that fashion is a lucrative trade for the young generation and discovering the undiscovered fashion in the industry,” she said.

Collectively, the content creators are carrying out groundbreaking research on sustainability within underground fashion industries.

Each of them is tasked with producing content for a country other than their own- Lucia for the UK, Adjoa for Zimbabwe, Thokozani for Namibia and Leah for Malawi.

The content creators will have a round table discussion at the Moto Republic hub in Harare and Bulawayo, where they will explore

tanneries in the vicinity before exhibiting immersive, multimedia installations incorporating film, sculpture, textiles, photography, crafts and written texts.

Mangoma said Zimbabwe has talent together with so much potential to create their own unique fashion brands and art therefore one cannot talk about fashion without involving Zimbabwe trade and tourism.

“We have invited the minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation Honourable Kirsty Coventry to be the guest of honour at the Content Creator Mixer next week because we cannot talk about fashion without looking at culture itself. We want to make people to understand that fashion is not about clothes only but embraces beauty, visual art and anthropology,” she said.