'That was the best-dressed front row I've ever seen,' a curator, stylist and I all agreed, after Chanel's Métiers d'art catwalk show, as we watched the dance floor fill with a pulsing crowd of attendees, 800 of them, many flown in from across Africa, in Dakar's Palais de Justice.
Runway shows can often be intimidatingly cool, big-budget affairs, replete with poker-faced business leaders and seen-it-all fashion insiders. But a feeling of warmth and joy permeated the cavernous space as a mix of celebrities (Pharrell Williams, Naomi Campbell, Whitney Peak and singer Tobe Nwigwe), senior-ranking editors and Chanel top brass (creative director Virginie Viard, president of Chanel fashion Bruno Pavlovsky and global CEO Leena Nair) mingled with Senegalese artists, dancers and designers.
Fashion has a long-established wanderlust, with immersive shows-turned-travel-experiences in far-flung locations dotting the calendar. But no brand quite embodies this tradition like Chanel, a house many credit with originating the idea of staging elaborate runway moments the world over, from Monaco to Havana. So when it was announced that the French titan would take its annual Métiers d'art show (previous settings include Edinburgh and Dallas) to Dakar, Senegal, becoming the first luxury fashion house to travel to sub-Saharan Africa, the fashion industry and the world at large took note.
This would be no ordinary destination show. And Dakar is no ordinary destination.
For years, the city has been enjoying a rise in prominence as a cultural capital, with an influential creative community making its mark on the global stage - a network of African culture-shifters who don't centre Western audiences or bow to the demands of Western tourism.
'We are proud of who we are as artists. It took us a long time to be this proud and to celebrate. We don't need the validation, though of course that doesn't mean we don't appreciate the love. But, rather, we know that we are enough,' says the designer Adama Amanda Ndiaye, owner of the label Adama Paris and founder of Dakar Fashion Week, which took place just days before the Chanel show and is in its 20th year. 'I'm championing all the designers here. And we're selling across the continent. We are looking to empower ourselves.'
For years, I had wanted to visit the city to explore a part of my own history as a Black woman from the African diaspora, and to see and experience its buzzing fashion and art renaissance for myself.
'Art and culture have always had an important place in Dakar,' says Olivia Marsaud, director of the Le Manège gallery in the city, and one of the local creative figures Chanel tapped to collaborate with. 'Culture has been supported here since the country's independence [from France, in 1960], when President Léopold Senghor set up the infrastructures necessary for its development, such as the National School of Arts, the Dynamic Museum and the Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres,' she explains. 'I'm not surprised by everything happening today. To me, the rise began a long time ago.'
Now, the city is teeming with cultural happenings that command coverage in glossy titles like this one and global broadsheet newspapers. There is the Dakar Biennale of African Contemporary Art, which The New York Times described as the 'largest, densest artistic gathering on Africa's terrain and on its own terms', and famed painter Kehinde Wiley's Black Rock, a sprawling artist-in-residence programme, named for the volcanic coastline, which he established to 'galvanise the growing artistic and creative energies that exist in Africa in an increasing measure'. In 2019, celebrities including Alicia Keys and Naomi Campbell flew in for its starry opening party.
'I call this the Door of Return,' he explained of one of its standout features, a 20ft-tall hardwood door, while showing me round the airy, art-filled space designed by the Senegalese architect, Abib Djenne. Just days before, I stood in the archway of its original reference, the historic Door of No Return on Gorée Island, once the final departure point of enslaved Africans trafficked to America and the Caribbean during the transatlantic slave trade.
It's a complicated endeavour for a house like Chanel to show a collection in Senegal, a former part of the French empire. It could be all too easy, and dangerous, to replicate the dynamics of colonialism or fall into a trap of performative allyship. 'I was pleasantly surprised by the choice of Dakar. I felt pride, but also fear,' says Marsaud. 'Pride because Dakar deserves to be recognised as an important centre of fashion and creativity in West Africa. But I was also afraid that Chanel would miss out on the city, its inhabitants, its artists, its wealth, and that the show Métiers d'art and the celebrities would take up all the space. But it didn't happen that way, fortunately.'
Throughout the brand's three-day programme, its participants - a cross-section of film-makers, authors, musicians, choreographers, artists, gallerists and designers from Dakar and Paris - attested to the time and care that had been dedicated to getting it right.
Chanel is taking what it described in a statement as a 'long-term approach', which began with the Dakar opening of La Galerie du 19M, a three-month-long residency, co-curated by Marsaud, that celebrated the weaving and embroidery trades through workshops, talks and events, free to all.
'The numbers speak for themselves - 10,000 visitors in less than three months is exceptional for Dakar,' Marsaud says. 'I saw children come with their class and then come back on weekends with their families. It was beautiful.' The work created during the programme has since culminated in an exhibition that has travelled to France, titled On the Thread, on show in Paris until the end of July. Next, the house will develop a series of 'entrepreneurial' initiatives. 'The partnership will continue via an economic fund from the Senegalese state. On the artistic side, I believe that the curiosity was strong on both sides, in both countries, and it's very important to keep that dynamic,' Marsaud says. 'More generally, in France as in Senegal, I hope that contemporary creation and craftsmanship will be completely decompartmentalised. It's the future! No more borders in the field of hand work.'
The Métiers d'art show, first staged in 2002, celebrates the house's famous workshops - the embroiderers (Lesage), feather workers (Lemarié), milliners (Maison Michel), shoemakers (Massaro), goldsmiths (Goossens) and more. For Chanel's Viard, the Dakar experience was more than a catwalk show. 'It's the event as a whole that I took into account. We've been thinking about it for three years. I wanted it to happen gently, over several days of deep, respectful dialogue,' she says. The clothes were a rich mash-up of Seventies shapes, earthy tones, and glittering embroidery and jewel work - a subtle nod to Senegalese style rather than a literal interpretation of it.
Meanwhile, the clothes on display off the catwalk were a standout show of their own. It's tradition for runway-show guests, most notably clients, to arrive decked out in the luxury brand that's hosting, often wearing the label head to toe. But that wasn't the case here. Instead, attendees proudly mixed Chanel bags and brooches with African-owned labels. 'Everyone who was in attendance at the show, and who was outside of the fashion show, was wearing some of the best fashion on the planet,' Pharrell Williams said the next day.
'In Dakar, dressing well is a true art of living,' Marsaud explains. 'We defend Senegalese style and a certain idea of luxury - made-to-measure by personal tailors, for example. Each woman or man chooses their fabrics, their colours. We are far from European fast fashion. The people who didn't know the country and came to the show felt that immediately.'
For Ndiaye, it was a full-circle moment: 'Once upon a time, we didn't think African fashion was good enough. But our fashion was everywhere that day. That was a beautiful moment to see. It all gets bigger and better from here.'