African inspired? What exactly does that mean? Is there such a thing, and does it even make sense? This lecture will interrogate the concept of “African-inspired” aesthetics and provide a broader outline on how to refer to and reference the different aesthetics from some parts of the African continent. As much as we appreciate the similarities between African cultures it is important to respect their differences in order to move more toward cultural appreciation and away from appropriation and misrepresentation.
Boitumelo Pooe specialises in fashion retail business management and she is currently doing her PhD at Durban University of Technology (DUT) in South Africa while she is based in Ravensburg working at DHBW as an academic employee and researcher. Her PhD aims to analyse the critical success factors and the influence of external support on retailing fashion design entrepreneurs, and she’ll be comparing Germany with South Africa. Boitumelo’s fashion education is coupled with extensive industry experience in retail, styling, lecturing, course development, industry support (with the South African Fashion Council and the Cape Town Fashion Council) and also business consultancy services through her own business Sesi2me.
