Sunny Dolat: The fashion thinker changing how the world sees African style
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In our sixth episode of The African Imaginary Podcast, guest Sunny Dolat and host Khangi Khoza talk about fashion, beauty, and why ‘a dress is never just a dress’ on the African continent.
Sunny Dolat is one of Africa's leading fashion thinkers, working as a curator, stylist, creative director and production designer. Since co-founding Nairobi's NEST collective and publishing the pivotal book Not African Enough, he has produced exhibitions, films and performances worldwide. His documentary project Stories of Our Lives was internationally acclaimed for archiving Kenya's queer voices — despite being banned at home. He helped shape the V&A's landmark show Africa Fashion, and joined The Business of Fashion 500, Class of '23.
So how does one of Africa's most compelling creative minds think about beauty, identity, and dress? Broadly, for a start. Sunny says, 'Everything I do is to expand our understanding of beauty and design, so people look further and harder to see the whole of the continent, not just the usual three or four places,' he says.
Sunny Dolat is one of Africa's leading fashion thinkers, working as a curator, stylist, creative director and production designer. Since co-founding Nairobi's NEST collective and publishing the pivotal book Not African Enough, he has produced exhibitions, films and performances worldwide. His documentary project Stories of Our Lives was internationally acclaimed for archiving Kenya's queer voices — despite being banned at home. He helped shape the V&A's landmark show Africa Fashion, and joined The Business of Fashion 500, Class of '23.
So how does one of Africa's most compelling creative minds think about beauty, identity, and dress? Broadly, for a start. Sunny says, 'Everything I do is to expand our understanding of beauty and design, so people look further and harder to see the whole of the continent, not just the usual three or four places,' he says.
Chapters
- 00:00 Intro
- 01:27 Sunny plays Keep or Toss
- 13:00 The meaning of
- 13:35 Maasai origins, naming system and infant mortality
- 16:05 Raised by four aunts and a grandmother
- 23:14 What was celebrated, what was punished
- 24:49 Sunny’s first enemy
- 27:56 Today's many titles - Jim Chuchu and the entry into styling
- 31:09 Founding the Nest Collective
- 35:23 “Stories of Our Lives” - archiving queer Kenyan lives
- 41:33 Still banned 14 years on - what bans actually do
- 43:44 State of Fashion and decentralising the Biennale
- 45:39 A career of side quests
- 48:56 Icons: Christine Checinska and Koyo Kouoh
- 50:30 Beauty as sacred
- 54:10 "In Their Finest Robes"
- 01:00:11 Waste colonialism
- 01:05:59 Africa's lived sustainability
- 01:11:05 Favourite African designers, IAMISIGO, Katush and more
- 01:12:27 East African minimalism and the settler-colonial legacy
- 01:18:07 Best style by city
- 01:21:22 Maasai dress and the flattening of Kenyan identity
- 01:25:27 The future of African fashion
- 01:27:54 Outro
