Out of Africa Redux

Bono and Ali Hewson, his wife, wants to revitalize apparel manufacturing in sub-Saharan Africa by manufacturing the clothes from their brand in China and Peru.

Ali Hewson and Bono in the campaign for Louis Vuitton.

Every Journey Began in Africa“. Oh, really? Checking in from that mythical magical place known as “Africa” (or, as Women’s Wear Daily reports, an “arid South African vista”) are Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson, founders of the fashion brand, Edun, for which they shot this campaign. The campaign is part of a push to relaunch the brand, which Bono and Hewson founded in 2005 with, as the Wall Street Journal reports, “the lofty mission of revitalizing apparel manufacturing in sub-Saharan Africa.” Trade, not aid. That’s what “the Africans” tell Bono, anyway.

Which would be all well and good, except for the fact that, as WSJ revealed, Edun (the video is on Louis Vuitton’s Youtube channel) produces mainly in China and, to a lesser extent, in Peru. To be fair, as the article points out, that partly has to do with the fact that Edun ran up against the “limitations of African manufacturing” during its early years. Of course, where exactly in Africa such manufacturing was taking place, as well as why Edun was unprepared for such obstacles and what the brand plans to do about this in the future remains unclear.* But that’s Bono. According to Hewson, he is “unencumbered by practicalities.”

What are practicalities, after all, when it comes to saving helping Africa?

  • We hope trade unions, labor laws and export tariffs had nothing to do with it.

Further Reading

Fuel’s errand

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Fragile state

Without an immediate change in approach, Somalia will remain a fragmented country populated by self-serving elites seeking foreign patrons.

Coming home

In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential college where they disappeared found them in a ceiling cupboard, still in their original packaging.

Imaginary homelands

A new biography of former apartheid homeland leader Lucas Mangope struggles to do more than arrange the actions of its subject into a neat chronology.

Business as usual?

This month, Algeria quietly held its second election since Abdelaziz Bouteflika was ousted in 2019. On the podcast, we ask what Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s second term means for the country.

The complexities of solidarity

Assassinated in 1978, Henri Curiel was a Jewish Egyptian Marxist whose likely killers include fascist French-Algerian colons, the apartheid South African Bureau of State Security, and the Abu Nidal Organization.