The African Students Union held a fashion show, titled “A Night in the Diaspora,” at 6 p.m. Dec. 6 in all three ballrooms of Campus Center.
The show’s fashion included streetwear associated with Black culture in the United States, traditional West African clothing and brightly colored pieces from the Caribbean. The African Diaspora, including people in Africa as well as people of African descent, represents a broad range of styles and cultures, which event coordinator Afriyie Asante-Adoo attributes to colonization spreading Africa’s population throughout different parts of the world.
“I’m personally a melting pot of African-American and African culture,” Asante-Adoo said. Though raised in the United States, she was brought up with traditions from Ghana, taking in its proverbs, music and kente cloth. President Noor Saadan acknowledged that the African clothing featured in the show will be mostly from West Africa, but Asante-Adoo said the show’s African clothing covered a variety of styles within the continent, despite the West-African focus.
“I think it’ll be a good representation of fashion across Africa,” Saadan said.
According to Saadan, the show has been in the works since mid-September after some deliberation over whether to have a pageant or a fashion show. Saadan made contact with brands, curated the playlist used for the show and chose models for the exhibit. She wasn’t overseeing the show’s collaboration with designers for the first time, and acknowledged that faculty adviser Justyn Santiago-Agudo helped the ASU “stay on track” during planning, but there’s a reason the lead-up to the show takes more than two months.
“I’m still not used to it,” Saadan said. “It gets hectic, but I do enjoy it because this is the role that I wanted.”
Though the ASU has collaborated with other clubs in the past, including the Haitian Student Association, Diversity in Motion and the Black Student Center, the ASU organized this show by itself. It worked with a largely local set of designers, including Never Reckon and Prophet | Envoy. According to Saadan, a large number of Black-owned designers launched their businesses in 2022 in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ASU explicitly sought out local Black-owned businesses in order to give them exposure.
The ASU hosted two galas before this in 2023 and 2024. Saadan said the 2024 show was widely attended and well-received by many she talked to, with acquaintances remarking on its diversity and representation of different communities. Before the show took place, both Saadan and Asante-Addo said that it would likely draw new members. According to Saadan, many of the ASU’s new members this year had seen the gala last year, which she attributed partly to the ASU’s Instagram presence.
“This is something that people really, really look forward to,” Asante-Addo said. “A lot of people wanted to do it.”