Nearly 70% of Black employees feel fashion jobs are inaccessible, according to the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CDFA) and PVH Corp.<\/p>\n
Kent State University is helping bridge this gap by exhibiting the work of one underrepresented community<\/p>\n
Sara Hume is a professor and curator at Kent State University\u2019s museum. The building also houses Kent State\u2019s School of Fashion<\/a>, which is among the top 25 fashion schools in the world and ranks fifth nationwide. The exhibit<\/a>, \u201cA Meeting of Cultures: Fashioning North Africa,\u201d showcases the work of contemporary designers who are from Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Egypt.<\/p>\n Hume said, it\u2019s the 30th exhibition she\u2019s worked on campus, but the first of its kind the world.<\/p>\n \u201cNorth Africa is full of centers of fashion. When you think about Paris, London, New York, it’s big fashion centers, but really, Casablanca is [an] amazing place and Cairo has wonderful fashions that are coming out of it,\u201d she said. \u201cI really want to open eyes of of people in America, in Ohio, to this richness and diversity.\u201d<\/p>\n The exhibition opened in September after several years of planning. Hume said. The exhibit is part of her larger, ongoing project to spotlight fashion from different African regions and address a common misconception in an industry where Black and African designers have historically faced underrepresentation.<\/p>\n \u201cBack in 2016, I organized an exhibition, \u2018Fashions of Southern Africa.\u2019 And that exhibition looked at fashion of South Africa and Namibia and the idea, in doing sort of smaller regions of Africa, is the message that Africa is not a monolith,\u201d Hume said.<\/p>\n The space is divided into three section: our land, disruptors and threads. Altogether, highlighting the community\u2019s diversity and contemporary concerns in the industry.<\/p>\n Hisham Oumlil launched his brand in 2005, which aims to highlight the intersection of cultures. (Spectrum News 1\/Tanya Velazquez)<\/p>\n Hisham Oumlil is the only U.S.-based designer in the exhibit and is from Casablanca, Morocco.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have the native atmosphere that we refer to as Berbers \u2026 we have the Black Africans, we have the Arab influence, we have the Byzantine, the Phoenicians and then we have the modern European influences. So it’s so very rich \u2026 It\u2019s worth, representing, at the world stage.<\/p>\n Oumlil, his fashion journey began in 1995 while studying and working in fashion retail in San Francisco.<\/p>\n Now, Oumlil is helping spread awareness of Moroccan culture through his clothing brand Oumlil.<\/p>\n \u201cNorth Africans \u2026 we have always been a point of inspiration for European designers, for example. And so, to be celebrated, I think it\u2019s really wonderful,\u201d Oumlil said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s important, in continuing this, important dialog about the beauty of cultural intersections all throughout the world.\u201d<\/p>\n While fashion history is often told through a western lens, Oumlil said, he\u2019s noticing the beginning of a broader shift toward equity.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s all an evolution, and it requires a collective sort of work and also an understanding from all the parties involved \u2026 by including more voices. into the fashion global, conversation,\u201d Oumlil said. \u201c\u2026 We have had very, very successful fashion designers who are originally from North Africa that have made very important contribution to the world of fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014\u00a0More than 40 clothing pieces and accessories from 24 artists and designers across the world are now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[63,10770,10773,10771,10776,96,10775,10777,10774,10772,3756],"class_list":{"0":"post-16807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-app-human-interest","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-ctv","12":"tag-human-interest","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-ohio","15":"tag-ohio-cleveland-top-stories","16":"tag-ohio-what-you-need-to-know","17":"tag-tanya-velazquez","18":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Hisham](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/FASHIONAFRICAEXTRA.jpeg\")
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