Dakar Style Is a Lived Experience

09.12.2024 - 18:21 / cntraveler.com / Barack Obama

Urban Africa is a love letter to the bustling African metropolises south of the great desert—Dakar, Kigali, Lagos, Addis Ababa, and Johannesburg, to name a few—that are dynamic, diverse, and more traveler-ready than ever. Find more inspiration here.

When photographer Trevor Stuurman first traveled to Dakar for Fashion Week in 2018, he wasn’t expecting to fall in love quite as hard as he did. After all, the visual artist and photographer from South Africa—and one of the continent’s most sought-after creatives—has spent years documenting the most dynamic cities and influential tastemakers—Barack Obama, Naomi Campbell, and Beyonce among others—around the world. Still, no place in the world entices him quite the way Senegal does. “Dakar is my favorite place in the world to visit,” he says.

Voted one of TIME Magazine’s Next Generation Leaders in 2021, Stuurman has spent his career challenging stereotypes and building powerful narratives around African excellence—and Dakar’s distinct creative energy has lured him back several times since. “Dakar is so artistic, and you feel it from the minute you arrive. Art here starts when you arrive at the airport and carries on into its streets; it’s in the people that you first encounter and what they’re wearing,” he explains.

A large part of the visual artist's recent work has centered around celebrating diverse Pan-African personalities—his quarterly publication The Manor is a striking catalog of contemporary African culture—and in Dakar, home to the continent's largest biennial and one of its oldest fashion weeks, he has found inspiration aplenty. “Everyone is always dressed up in Dakar—in a way where beauty is not limited to a special occasion, but is a way of life,” says Stuurman, himself a style icon and once voted GQ’s Best Dressed. Well-dressed locals like architect and art director Mamy Tall and fashion designer Khadija Aisha Ba make repeat appearances in his Dakar stills—and he credits them with opening his eyes to the city's vibrant communities and joyful style. “The people I’ve met there are so giving of their time,” he says.

While it was fashion that first took Stuurman to the Senegalese capital, over time it has become a prism for exploring its physical landscape. “The way the buildings are adorned here—their use of color and their architectural style—almost mirrors the fashion, which is beautiful because you almost see this conversation between the two,” he explains. “I remember thinking, when I first came here, that the city almost felt like a movie set, because it just felt so art-directed and staged, but it’s not—it’s effortless.”

Below, Stuurman reflects on some of his favorite photographs from nearly seven years of visiting and documenting Dakar—and