Fashion provides rich insights into the changing role of tradition in global markets. African designers today work in international markets, where their designs reflect new identities and global influences. This presentation focuses on the use of forms identified with African tradition in the work of African and non-African designers. Particular attention will be paid to the appearance of these forms at moments of cultural change and exchange, when distinctions between “traditional” and “modern” practices take on enhanced importance. African designers who adapt traditional forms to contemporary fashion are not engaging in static preservations of tradition for its own sake. For many of these designers, the use of distinctly African forms constitutes a refusal to be subsumed by Western styles. Simultaneously, many designers recognize these “traditional” forms as a tool for marketing—they understand that international consumers expect them to work in recognizably African styles. “African Tradition,” thus, becomes reified by non-African expectations. A more obvious reification of African tradition has occurred in the work of non-African designers who adapt distinctly African forms and styles. The long history of African influence on Western fashion design—both acknowledged and unacknowledged—offers fascinating insights into Africa’s changing role in the Western imagination. Many Western designers have adapted non-Western textiles, adornments, and garment styles to their work, usually without explicit reference to their origins. Instead, Africanisms are used as generalized references to the “traditional” and the “exotic.” For Western designers and consumers, references to “tradition” through fashion suit the needs of particular cultural moments. In recent years a select few African designers have gained a place in the international arena, so that now diverse interpretations of “Africanized” fashion are represented in the work of both African and non-African designers.