Tems floated into the 2023 Oscars like a cloud that had learned to use words. Her body-hugging white Lever Couture dress swooped over her shoulders and around her head, creating a bold halo that instantly became the buzz in the room and on social media. A few viewers complained that it blocked their view. Tems afterwards wrote it off as an “oops,” but also as a declaration of intentional presence. In a night that plays it safe, a Nigerian designer painted the red carpet with canvas, stating that African fashion references and boldness have a seat at the biggest table in the industry.

Years ago, Lupita Nyong’o showed the world an early lesson on how African identity could make its way around couture without forgetting its origins. When she went up to receive her Oscar in 2014, she was in a Prada gown of Nairobi sky blue. Loose and flowing, it was a fairy tale and autobiography in one. Ten years later, she returned to the Oscars in blue again, an allusion to that night when a Kenyan actress redistributed red carpet heft and offered a generation an image to hold onto. While the Oscars provided a fairy tale, the Met Gala provided architecture. In 2023, Michaela Coel co-chaired the event in a one-of-a-kind Schiaparelli crystal-encrusted gown that took thousands of hours to create and resembled a sculpture to put on.

It wasn’t all spectacle. Coel’s rise from Ghanaian-British playwright to co-chair of the fashion world’s most-watched museum fundraiser said much about who gets to define beauty and brains globally. The dress was a manifesto in beads and light. Style also travels through sound. In 2023, Tiwa Savage performed at King Charles III’s coronation concert at Windsor Castle in a custom emerald gown by Nigerian designer Lanre Da Silva Ajayi. It was regal and unmistakably Nigerian.

The green nodded to the flag at a very British ceremony, blending high pageantry with Lagos confidence. A reminder that world culture is a two-way street. African creatives are not visitors. They arrive with their own designers, their own style, and their own interpretation of what “formal” could be. And there is Burna Boy, whose arrival at the 2023 Met Gala marked his first appearance at fashion’s biggest night, and he made sure it felt like Lagos had walked straight onto Fifth Avenue. Wearing a custom Burberry outfit that fused a regal cape with sharp tailoring, he stood out in a room filled with couture heavyweights. It wasn’t just a debut; it was a statement that African music royalty could hold their own in the most exclusive fashion circles. His presence signalled how Afrobeats, once seen as niche, had become so global that its stars were now part of fashion’s most photographed conversations.

African pop is not just a sound; it’s a movement. It is a silhouette, a colour saga, a sash that Parisian designers now strive for in Los Angeles. Those moments matter because they are not merely a trend. They recreate cartography. When Tems blurs an outlook, she unleashes another. When Lupita names a tone after Nairobi, she evokes the essence of city life in a single word. When Michaela Coel makes crystals into armour, she broadens the definition of who gets to be a protector of fashion history.

When Tiwa Savage transposes Lagos to Windsor, she brings in a continent’s corn onto a lawn fit for kings. When Burna Boy swings his way through the Met Gala in an outfit that will not shrink, he makes room for the next generation. Global style is no fixed centre that the world encircles. It is a liquid conversation where African designers now converse with their own accents and make their own patterns. The fashion runways and red carpets are listening. And when you listen, you can’t help but recall the sound.