Fresh prints: Afro gets its chic back

Could it be a coincidence that as Amanda Laird Cherry, high-priestess of the Afrochic fashion movement, has presented a retrospective of her fashion oeuvre at the Durban Art Museum, the Shweshwe print is winding its way into art? Where once these bold geometric patterns printed on hard cotton fabrics were the preserve of rural women, in the early 2000s they became a style statement on the SA Fashion Week ramps.