Kokrobitey Institute — What Hands Remember

The most useful institution in West African fashion this year is not a brand. It is a two-week workshop, 16 to August 30, at an institute the artist Renée Neblett founded in 1992 on the coast west of Accra. The fourth edition is titled What Hands Remember, and the faculty is the whole argument: practicing kente weavers and the textile scholar Seyram Agbleze sit alongside a Nigerian designer and the French designer Soline Charrier. Esi Otoo runs the Esi Sweater Project there, turning textile waste into handwoven garments and paid work for weaving communities. Earlier editions sent participants into Kantamanto market and the landfills behind it to source material. Curriculum, not campaign.