Ntombi Khambule on Building the African Fashion Guild: "No One Is Coming to Save Us But Ourselves"

Ntombi Khambule has spent years learning what happens when creativity meets, and is left without, the structures that help it survive. As the founder of the African Fashion Guild, she is now translating that experience into something collective: a membership-based initiative that offers designers educational content, practical tools, and a network built on shared responsibility. In this portrait, she speaks candidly about the difference between her work and fashion councils, about building in public while holding down a full-time role, and about what it means to pursue work that feels less like a career choice and more like a calling.

PROFILENDAANE25 June 2026Comment

Circularity, African Textiles and Building Clearly Invincible with Sessi K

For Sessi K, the most interesting work in fashion happens away from the spotlight, in the systems, the data and the textile histories that hold the whole industry up. The founder of Clearly Invincible talks ecosystem circularity, African textile archives, and learning that nothing in this industry comes for free.

PROFILENDAANE18 June 2026Comment

“Telling Stories Can Be Very Straightforward”: Frida Nakarma Lidbom on Fashion's Waste

She has watched warehouses filled with excessive amounts of clothing nobody wanted, made a documentary about waste colonialism, and now spends her time amplifying the communities the fashion industry overlooks. Frida Nakarma Lidbom talks immersion over assumption, the case for international regulation, and why telling a story well doesn’t have to be overcomplicated.

PROFILENDAANE10 June 2026Comment

Fiona Uwamahoro: Documenting Rwandan Fashion From the Inside

Fiona Uwamahoro is building the academic record of Rwandan fashion as someone who's evolving inside the culture she studies. She talks about funding as the quiet obstacle few researchers admit to, why isolated acceleration programmes aren't enough on their own, and why she believes creative education, not quick success, is what will hold the African fashion ecosystem together.

PROFILENDAANE3 June 2026Comment

Adaeze Oguzie: Our Stories Deserve to Be Seen

When Adaeze Oguzie describes her work, she returns to the same word: platforms. Platforms for designers navigating a global industry that consistently underestimates them. Platforms for writers and visual artists who exist without the infrastructure they deserve. Across Style House Files | Lagos Fashion Week, In The Library, and ILE ENYO, the question she keeps asking is the same: how do you make sure talent gets the structures it needs to survive, and to be seen?

PROFILENDAANE27 May 2026Comment

"If It Can’t Be Made Sustainably, It Doesn’t Need to Exist Yet": Chloe Asaam on Design, Integrity and the Ghanaian Fashion Ecosystem

Chloe Asaam’s work has never fit into one box, and she has stopped trying to make it. A fashion designer and sustainable growth strategist operating out of Accra, she helps growth-stage solopreneurs and young creatives find their footing while building her own practice with intention.. In this portrait, she talks about the rule that governs every production decision she makes, the culture of exploitation she refuses to enable, and why growing slowly might be the most radical thing a designer can do right now.

PROFILENDAANE14 May 2026

Making Room for Others: Paloma Duran on PR, African Fashion and the Art of Authentic Storytelling

Paloma Duran has built her practice on a conviction that visibility should feel like belonging. As PR and brand awareness consultant and newly appointed PR, Culture and Events Director for ELLE Afrique, she works at the intersection of fashion, culture, and global storytelling, connecting African creativity with the audiences and markets it deserves. In this portrait, she reflects on navigating racism in the French fashion and luxury industries, learning to claim her worth, and what it really takes to make room for others.

PROFILENDAANE7 April 2026Comment