Burkina Faso fashion designers: More to nation than conflict

Vibrant African clothes, both traditional and contemporary, enlivened the catwalk in Burkina Faso’s fashion week.

Designers say they are striving to make the West African country become known as an emerging fashion hub, to offset its reputation for its recent coup and ongoing conflict with Islamic extremists. Some of the shows were staged on a central street of Ouagadougou, the capital, where residents lined up to see models strut designs for women and men.

The small West African nation hosted its third Ouaga Fashion Week — the first since the pandemic forced its delay. The colorful four-day show closed Sunday amid surging jihadi violence linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group that’s killed thousands.

When the capital was hit by frequent power cuts, models and designers used the lights of their cell phones to put on makeup and fix their hair.

Some 35 designers — chosen from about 200