Fashion

For 15 years, Ouma Tema has been creating fashion that gives fuller-figured people something the industry too often denied them: choice, confidence and the freedom to simply dress for themselves.

For designer Ouma Tema, fashion has never been simply about making clothes. It has been about making space. Fifteen years ago, when plus-size fashion was largely overlooked by mainstream retailers and media, Tema saw a gap that was personal to her as much as it was commercial. Where fuller-figured people were expected to find something that fitted, rather than fashion being designed with their bodies in mind.

With fluid tailoring, considered silhouettes and a distinctly Nigerian point of view, Wanni Fuga is making a compelling case for luxury that speaks softly but leaves a lasting impression.

There is an art to knowing when to make a statement and when to let the details speak for themselves. For Nigerian fashion house Wanni Fuga, that balance is at the heart of its design philosophy, where clean lines, expressive textures and thoughtful craftsmanship come together in a wardrobe that feels both effortless and assured.

Milan Fashion Week has never been interested in playing it safe, and the Spring/Summer 2027 season made that particularly clear. Across more than 200 events, Italian fashion moved between restraint and excess, heritage and experimentation, with designers using clothes to examine everything from femininity and power to nightlife, nostalgia and the increasingly blurred line between fashion and performance. If there was one defining mood, it was a refusal to settle on a single one.

There are fashion shows that introduce a collection, and then there are fashion shows that announce a presence. MaXhosa Africa’s Paris Fashion Week debut belonged to the second category. At the South African ambassador’s residence in Paris, Laduma Ngxokolo sent 54 looks down the runway for his first appearance on the official Paris Fashion Week calendar, bringing with him more than a decade of work built around knitwear, Xhosa heritage and the possibilities of African luxury. The setting mattered, but so did what happened inside it. This was not an African designer borrowing Paris as a backdrop. It was a South African brand arriving in one of fashion’s most established rooms with its own visual language already fully formed.

On 28 September, H&M and ELIE SAAB toasted the forthcoming arrival of their anticipated collaboration – a distinctive collection spanning ready-to-wear, evening finery and accessories. The event was attended by Amelia Gray, Gabbriette, Iris Law, Anok Yai, Imaan Hammam, Lila Moss, Marisa Abela and Calum Harper. Miss Universe 2019, actress and TV host Zozibini Tunzi, together with broadcaster, actress and model Nomalanga Shozi, represented South Africa at the event as friends of the brand.

The MTV Video Music Awards have never been a place for playing it safe. For decades, the ceremony’s carpet has occupied its own corner of fashion history, where pop spectacle, experimentation and a little provocation are not only welcomed, but expected. At the 2026 VMAs, that spirit was alive and well.

In a world increasingly enamoured with quiet luxury, Zimbabwean fashion house Zargue’sia is unafraid of grandeur. Founded by designer Ishmael Tsakatsa, the Harare-based house creates garments where precision tailoring meets sumptuous fabrics, intricate embellishment and silhouettes with a distinctly regal sensibility. The effect is glamorous without feeling disposable, polished yet rich with drama.

Television’s significant night was always going to be about the shows, the performances and the trophies, but by the time the stars reached the blue carpet at the 78th Emmy Awards, the conversation had already shifted. Fashion had its own ceremony to conduct. Los Angeles became a moving catalogue of couture, sharp tailoring, polished beauty and carefully engineered silhouettes, with celebrities arriving at the Peacock Theater looking less like attendees and more like characters entering another world. The carpet was not particularly interested in excess for excess’s sake. Instead, it revealed a growing appetite for clothes that understood the value of restraint, construction and presence.

The NYFW is in full effect, and somewhere between the established houses and the season’s familiar names, Kai Cenat has made a particularly interesting entrance. Not as a streamer who happens to have a clothing line, but as a creative willing to step away from the thing that made him famous and see what else he could become. At Cipriani in Lower Manhattan, VIVET presented its Spring Summer 2027 debut as a three-act study of evolution, moving through menswear, womenswear, footwear and leather goods. The significance was less about a celebrity entering fashion than it was about watching a creator translate an identity built on the internet into something physical, tactile and deliberately made.

Born from a conversation between two sisters, Ghanaian label Winara Woman is creating a wardrobe for women who refuse to be reduced to a single version of themselves.

A woman can be many things at once. She can be commanding and soft, understated and magnetic, impeccably polished at noon and gloriously dressed by night. Winara Woman understands this duality and has built its entire fashion proposition around it.