The Field Museum is showcasing Africa’s colorful world of high fashion in a new exhibit aptly titled “Africa Fashion,” celebrating the continent’s layered history of style and creativity.

Photography, film and fabrics are used to write the continent’s expansive story, starting chronologically during the liberation period of the mid-20th century up until today, displaying the work of designers who have dressed everyone from afrobeats artists to American first ladies.

“We hope to tell a story that’s about agency, about abundance and about unbounded creativity,” said Christine Checinska, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London’s inaugural senior curator of African and diaspora textiles and fashion, and lead curator of the exhibit. “It’s what I see as the magnificence of African creativity. Within that, we want to tell a story that gives a glimpse into the glamour and the politics of the African fashion scene.”

Twenty-two of the 54 African countries are physically represented in “Africa Fashion.” A film highlights fashion pieces from each nation, with a 55th outfit that perhaps represents pan-Africanism or the diaspora.

Curators at the Victoria and Albert Museum began working on the show during the COVID-19 lockdown. They conducted online studio visits with artists across the continent to find who was making the greatest global impact.

“The fashions are as diverse as the continent itself,” Checinska said.

Along with the expansive designs and artwork, music from African artists plays throughout the exhibit. It feels like an immersive, culturally enriching experience.

“You’re looking at beautiful things and looking at a culture of people who have created beautiful things, and not in a past-tense way. They’re still creating beautiful things,” said the Field Museum’s exhibition project manager, Angelica London, who also helped stitch the project together.

“Africa is eons ahead of the United States when it comes to fashion,” London said. “The silhouettes, the materials that are used are very different from what you’d find walking in downtown Chicago.”

“Africa Fashion” is running at the Field Museum through June 29.

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