Abstract

This article examines the Congo Fashion Week London (CFWL), a fashion catwalk produced and consumed by Congolese and other Black Africans in London. The paper addresses the various ways through which CFWL organizers, designers and performers act within the contemporary fashion industry. The process is defined as “double-bind”. It involves a multifaceted, often contradictory, positionality between ways of dealing with the “Western gaze", the reproduction of cultural “authenticity” and the contestation of the limiting discourses of Western exoticism. The article reveals how CFWL social actors are influenced by Western and non-Western power relations through which the global fashion industry operates, while their body performances simultaneously emphasize an “original” African narrative and subvert stereotypical boundaries dictated by the West. In addition, the entanglement between the cultural/aesthetic sphere of the CFWL spectacle and its fundraising goal is explored. The paper, therefore, argues that the medium of fashion and its system are embedded in the social world of Black Africans and have effective political weight.

摘要

本文考察了伦敦刚果时装周( CFWL )，这是一场由刚果人和其他非洲黑人在伦敦生产和消费的时装秀。本文阐述了CFWL组织者、设计师和表演者在当代时尚行业中的各种行为方式。该过程被定义为“双重绑定”。它涉及到处理“西方凝视”的方式、文化“真实性”的再现以及对西方异国情调的限制性话语的争论之间的多方面的、往往是矛盾的定位。文章揭示了CFWL如何社会参与者受到西方和非西方权力关系的影响，全球时装业通过这些权力关系运作，而他们的身体表演同时强调“原始”非洲叙事并颠覆西方规定的陈规定型界限。此外，还探讨了CFWL奇观的文化/审美领域与其筹款目标之间的纠葛。因此，该论文认为，时尚这一媒介及其系统植根于非洲黑人的社会世界，并具有有效的政治影响力。