Present at AFD since 2014, Mônica Anjos shares her journey in black fashion

Exuberance in fabrics, silhouettes with movement in vibrant colors, lace, sequins and macramé. Since 2014, the brand by Bahian designer Mônica Anjos has been present on the Afro Fashion Day catwalk, with looks that still make up her collection today and are highly appreciated by the designer. An example is the mustard jumpsuit from the 2020 edition, which had Palm as its theme, and which almost wouldn’t be part of that year’s Afro: “And then I arrived at my studio and saw a folded fabric with the exact tone of the theme. I took the fabric, took the measurements and managed to make a beautiful jumpsuit. And after the show, the piece appeared in Vogue Online. Vogue got to know the work of the Mônica Anjos brand at Afro Fashion Day”, he recalls.

See the complete mini-doc about Mônica Anjos:

This recognition reinforces the potential and responsibility in black fashion, pursued by Mônica over the years. Although the brand physically appeared in 2010, in its first store in Rio Vermelho, Mônica Anjos attributes its emergence and performance in fashion to years of activism in the black movement: “It was born from a process that is not only creative, but one of transformation and identity recovery of Brazilian black aesthetics, based on the activism of the Unified Black Movement. The brand was born in this place where clothing contributed to the recovery of the African culture of black bodies, for a different perspective of self-knowledge and self-care”, he explains.

Despite being the daughter of a seamstress, it was during her immersion in the political struggle that Mônica understood that fashion would be her calling and main contribution to the black community. For this reason, he says to this day: “There is no fashion without being active”. In his designs, he seeks to explore identity, cultural recovery and the construction of citizenship through union with other artistic aspects. One example is his most recent collection, Olhos D’água, inspired by the work of Conceição Evaristo. “With the writing skills of Conceição Evaristo, combined with Capim, a designer from Bahia, we did this reading and brought this catwalk inclusive of the relationship between literature and fashion”, he shares. There are more than 20 years of career in fashion, dressing powerhouses such as Milton Nascimento, Margareth Menezes and Lazzo Matumbi, and since 2021, integrating the core of designers at Casa de Criadores.

For Mônica, Afro Fashion Day marks her trajectory due to the discipline required when building the creative process, guided by a theme and periodicity, and which, over the years, ended up aligning with the development of her collections. A factor that, according to her, also impacts the scenario of Bahian creators: “Afro is important because it was an event. We were and were, in some way, anonymous. Creators still had a lot of difficulty in terms of visibility and giving visibility to their creative process. So, it arrives at this place that gives us visibility and highlights the importance of being in this process. Over these 10 years, there were 10 years of learning. We arrive here very happy with this project. Long live Afro.”

Mini docs Afro Fashion Day:

Media and Digital Strategy Editor: Jorge Gauthier

Culture intern: Luiza Gonçalves

Media team: Eduardo Bastos, Arthur Leal and Gabriel Cerqueira

Afro Fashion Day is a project by the newspaper Correio with sponsorship from Avon and Bracell, support from CAIXA, Shopping Barra, Salvador Bahia Airport and Wilson Sons and institutional support from Sebra