I’ve never seen anyone with these puff braids before.
They kinda look like pods to me.
Like Afrofuturist, like something’s gonna open out of it and like light’s gonna come
shine out.
Tiny little miniature aliens are gonna come out of it.
Let’s not think about that.
Not that futuristic.
I’m wandering the stacks of New York’s Midtown Comics.
Woah.
This place is massive.
Yup.
Come on.
Where I’m learning just how far superheroes have come
since the age of burly white guys dressed in spandex onesies.
Meet Delta Major.
A comic book fan turned costume designer.
A delta is like a meeting point and then a major is just, when in doubt, be extra.
I’m ever-changing my style, my look, my hair.
These comics have evolved, and so too have superheroes.
These are some of the classics well known from DC like Batman and then the Black Panther,
of course, with his Vibranium suit.
It was one of the biggest movies of last year.
In 2018, Black Panther exploded into theaters snagging more than a billion dollars in ticket sales.
For so many, this was more than a movie.
It was a resurrection of a decades old movement called Afrofuturism.
It’s what happens
when a sci-fi imagination is applied to African-American narratives
across dozens of art forms,
including comics.
But for communities still reeling from tragedy, how can fashion and fantasy help write
a new storyline?
Afrofuturism has made it such a mainstream thing to just have black badass characters
that are smart, scientific, and just very powerful in their own right, while still being
black.
There’s a new Iron Person.
Iron Man isn’t the only Iron-
They’re not gendered anymore.
It’s a sixteen year old girl named Riri Williams.
She is a genius.
She went to MIT and she basically created his whole suit over again.
She still wears her afro and her natural curly hair, and is very into like street style
and hip-hop.
When you talk about comic books, your whole demeanor changes.
You got so excited.
You really light up.
I do love comic books.
My dad collected comic books.
So it’s like nostalgia, part of my childhood growing up.
It’s just like a thing
that my family does.
There was even a year where half my family literally went to Comic-Con.
And we were just rolling deep as a family through Comic-Con just nerding out together.
Delta's love of comics only grew when she discovered her secret power.
She could sew.
Here are some of my creations.
I created this top, the pattern on the pants.
I make art with fabric, that’s just my medium.
This is awesome.
Something I love to
do in my pieces are the shoulder cap epaulettes.
This is like your signature.
Mmhmm, this is my signature.
It’s like armor, but also like biomechanic.
Just little wings.
Just little, mmhmm.
These are my bootyless chaps.
Excuse me?
Yes.
Your wax cloth bootyless chaps.
Talk about, like, culture jamming.
West-African wax print but like
Cowboy chaps.
The cowboy chaps which is very queer, you know, but then you have like the cargo pocket
and like the hood which is
very American, you know?
And like street fashion, yeah?
I love combining.
It’s so good.
That’s it.
That’s the Delta thing.
Pulling from all these sources.
For years, African Americans like Delta have been dreaming up an origin story.
A source for their superpowers.
Personally, do you know your ancestral history?
Unfortunately, I do not.
In America, we don’t know where we came from.
So we’re just trying to pull from whatever connects us and gives us that sense of grounding
and home.
We are trying to, um…
That’s not our fault but we are trying to connect.
We have to remember that when we were brought here as slaves, we don’t know what our lineage
is and where we came from.
We’re trying to figure it out and through the tool of dress, we’re able
to link back to our culture in the best way that we know how.
Kimberly Jenkins is a professor of fashion history at Parsons School of Design in New York,
in the midst of curating an exhibition on fashion and race.
What does race have to do with fashion?
Oh gosh.
We’re realizing quite a bit.
The way we dress ourselves and adorn ourselves is inextricably linked to how we see ourselves.
From our hair, to how we wear our makeup, we can think about how we can dress ourselves
in a way
that confronts a troubled past.
It’s imperative to look to our past and be able to acknowledge what our ancestors
went through even just a few generations back.
The labels that we’ve been given.
Images from a Jim Crow past.
With Afrofuturism, we can sort of reassess history and take our ancestors into liberation
with us through dressing how we want, and propose a new resilient future for ourselves.
On our own terms.
I find George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic a really interesting case study in black history
because they had this sort of double bind where they were black and marginalized, but
they were also this group of like, and I say this in the most lovingly term, of black weirdos
at that time.
So they just thought, okay, well if we’re not gonna fit in anywhere we’re just gonna dress
like aliens, these other worldly characters.
It was a cosmic response to American racism and discrimination.
Sun Ra’s music.
Octavia Butler’s literature.
It all worked to reclaim black identity.
Their supersonic statements gave rise to what would come to be called Afrofuturism.
It seems to pull this ancient, tribal past and then it’s fused with this super futuristic
look that’s almost like space alien.
From New York to Nigeria, the style is contradictory
and yet perfectly matched.
Tradition mixed with technology, lo-fi
with sci-fi, what’s in our history mixed with what’s in our imagination.
Recent acolytes include Janelle Monae, Childish Gambino, and yes, even Beyonce.
The look deliberately lays out a wider vision.
It turns a dystopian past of slavery and colonialism,
into a utopian future where black people chart their own destiny.
It's exactly what Kimberly's latest exhibition is about.
Imagination and the black American experience.
This is a way of
turning the classroom inside out and just letting the public get involved in the discourse.
In this room, Afrofuturism looks like galactic headgear, regal dresses, and lots of hair.
For these designers, it's a no rules fashion salute to their identity.
Academically speaking, Afrofuturism is an American concept.
It was created by Americans and it reckons with the African
diaspora.
Do you think Afrofuturism has a place in Africa?
Afrofuturism definitely has a place in Africa.
Although we have very different pasts, it would be incredibly interesting to see how
that’s being worked out through music, art, and of course, fashion.
So I’m gearing up for a trip to Africa's biggest city.
Lagos, Nigeria.
Where the continent's most ambitious, most talented designers go to get noticed.
Lagos is a hustle.
Lagos is a beautifully crazy city, but it also has so much vibrance, there’s so much
creativity going on here, there’s so much innovation happening in Lagos.
Home to more than 400 ethnic groups and 500 languages,
Lagos is more than a melting pot.
It’s an explosion of cultures.
Tonight, the curtain is rising on Africa’s biggest runway.
Lagos Fashion Week.
Four straight days of events showcasing the works of designers like Lisa Folawiyo, Orange Culture,
and I.AM.ISIGO, with radical stylists like Daniel Obasi.
Then, there’s Falana, a singer with a taste for statement pieces,
closing out the show with a debut of her new album.
I am a singer, musician, songwriter.
I’m obsessed with fashion.
As am I.
My parents are Nigerian.
I moved to Canada, and I grew up in Toronto.
But I wasn’t removed culturally.
My parents thought it was really important for me to know where I was from and to have
connection with my family.
Falana grew up listening to both American and Nigerian musicians, and visiting Lagos to see family.
So when she took up singing, the search for her voice led her back here.
All the reference points that I had growing up, now they really fit in.
All the kind of sounds that I hear in my head.
It’s now starting to make sense and come together in Lagos.
When people listen to my music, I want them to be able to hear where the old meets the new.
Taking the vintage and marrying it with the contemporary.
So as someone who’s obsessed with fashion and arts and culture, Lagos is really somewhere
where I’ve found
I connect with the heartbeat of what’s going on.
So this is Alara.
This is amazing.
Absolutely gorgeous.
And it’s like a luxury store that reflects our own culture as well.
Elegant. It's so classy.
Taking traditional Nigerian adire prints and it just comes together really seamlessly, I think.
Putting Nigerian context in a global kind of fashion.
Yeah, exactly.
Do you want to try this on?
Yeah.
Well, I’m not a hat person.
Well, it’s not even a hat.
It’s actually gele.
But this is a reimagined one.
With bangs?
Look, you look great.
There’s different ways to think about Afrofuturism, right?
I think Afrofuturism can embody how
our roots and how our culture can inform our future selves.
Can inform what we as a culture will look like, sound like, feel like in, let’s say,
2100.
Falana used her community's past to envision what it might look like as far out as the 22nd century.
But Nigeria's history has been marred by what you could call an alien invasion.
British colonizers occupied the region in 1885.
They exploited the land’s palm oil and forced people to convert to Christianity.
When Nigeria gained independence in 1960,
the British left behind a torn country to save itself.
Yet despite all that was taken from them, Nigeria’s people endured.
They found their way back to traditions that refuse to be eradicated.
For many artists here, moving Nigeria forward means looking back.
Adire. It literally means tie and dye.
It was created and popularized by Yoruba women and passed down through generations.
This is the dyeing pits.
This is where everything happens.
This is where everything happens?
The final stage.
Hold onto it, it’s clean.
This is amazing.
Of course it’s amazing.
Alright, this is what I call freehand.
Okay.
You understand?
This is called batik.
That’s where the beauty is.
Across town, one far out visionary is pushing traditions like adire even further.
What does Afrofuturist fashion look like for you?
I think for me the message really is that anything is possible.
I’m such a firm believer in alternative realities
when talking about art.
Within afrofuturism, there is no limit to what you can do.
So you can literally explore as much as you want to.
Daniel is the styling genius behind some of Nigeria’s edgiest photoshoots and fashion videos.
His aesthetic is Afro space travel.
Like something that would fit in both at the Met and on Mars.
Today, he’s styling Falana for fashion week.
I definitely like this as a dress on its own.
Okay, let me try it on.
Afrofuturism just offers that platform where you can explore.
Where you can mix so much together and still not lose your heritage.
Yeah, I love it.
Ta-da.
As a musician, what I wear also plays an influence into how my music is perceived, and I love
to be able to collaborate with designers in a way that helps to bring my music to life.
On the runway, this heritage is palpable.
But the collections also feel decidedly new.
Yes, there are local references but they’re in a global spotlight and they’re beaming.
Yoruba geles and adire prints walk side by side with sheer paneled dresses and androgynous
silhouettes.
I could believe these clothes were designed a hundred years ago or sent back from a
hundred years in the future.
That’s the thing
about Afrofuturism.
It’s fluid.
It’s what you dream it to be.
I think understanding your past gives you context to be able to innovate in the future.
And I think if you do not have a rooted and grounded identity, you’ll be lost in the world.
Falana’s performance is an apt finale to Lagos fashion week,
and as I watch her sing, I can't help but think of Delta.
Unlike Falana, Delta can't reconnect with her roots.
She doesn't know them.
Pinpointing her Africanness to a specific space and time is difficult.
Her vision of self can shift with the change of an outfit.
Some people see how a lot of African Americans are picking and choosing pieces from all over Africa.
It’d be like, the equivalent of someone wearing a cowboy hat, like board shorts, and
then an I Love New York t-shirt.
It’s not anchored in anything.
You’re correct, it’s not authentic and that’s not our fault.
You can pull from all over and still be African American and of Africa and of the diaspora.
I find like
whatever you’re drawn to, your spirit’s drawn to it for a reason so I probably connect
to it in some sort of way in my history.
Tonight Delta is doing what she does best.
Using her imagination to fuel her alter-ego.
So right now, I’m just drawing some tribal makeup on to go with this Afro deity that
I created.
I would love to know what part of Africa, what country, what tribe I’m from.
Looking at my features, I find I mimic Sudanese people with the high cheek bones and like
the way my nose flares.
I look at the Maasai tribes and they’re so tall and lanky, and I’m like I might
be part Maasai.
What would you say to a black woman growing up in the United States who might not have
the privilege of being so close to their heritage, who might be feeling lost and
is looking to Afrofuturism
as a way to heal and to look forward?
Wow, that’s a very heavy question because it’s not just an intellectual thing, it’s
an emotional thing, it’s a psychological experience.
What would I say to them?
I think they should obey their spirit.
That’s the thing that has really guided me.
Obey the spirit.
Why is it important to know what your history is?
The past influences your
future, and a lot of black people do not know that in America.
That we came from these rich heritage and cultural tribes.
Afrofuturism is a tangible, visual representation of all the infinite possibilities that could be.
Afrofuturism is seeing black people in a brighter light.
In a country that has long denied black people their humanity, Afrofuturism recasts them
as superhuman.
In fashion, in sci-fi, there are no rules.
In Afrofuturism, there’s only one.
Obey your spirit.