While South Africa, like many countries in the global South, is plagued by persistent social issues, the vibrant fashion scene in the country has been hailed as world class – inspiring the industry globally.
The AFRICHAOS project is a fashion investigation of a diverse culture full of contrasts and fashion paradoxes. Fashion designers from Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts took up the challenge and created fashion from old clothes, found objects and textiles under the difficult conditions of Covid-19 in the summer semester of 2020. They dealt creatively with topics of sustainability such as natural materials, upcycling and zero waste. The creation or avoidance of waste and its shipment to African countries was addressed as well as critical whiteness, cultural appropriation, black feminism and the Black Lives Matter movement.
The resulting collections combine traditional craftsmanship, couture and upcycling with natural materials and trash to create an attractive “slow-fashion style chaos”. An interdisciplinary group of students presented the fashion collections in film and photography.




Supervisor
Prof. Martina Glomb
Support
Square Project E.V.
MediaTV GmbH
use-less
Designers
Giorgio De Florio
Irem Erdogan
Jule Gocht
Alejandra Rodriguez Maldonado
Larissa Baudewig
Antonia Dierks
Stella Dounaki
Lea Dreßler
Isabel Garbrecht
Mareile Jensen
Marieke Koschny
Designers
Minh Trang Luong
Anna Möller
Tessa Stetter
Lara Stöbe
Carla Wischnewski
Make-up/ Hair
Irem Erdogan
Antonia Dierks
Carla Wischnewski
Stella Dounaki
Film Team
Marcel Metscher
Linus Kempa
Jan Nasemann
Foto Team
Anne Speltz
Kai Nolda
Graphic Team
Marcel Metscher
Daniel Barth