An essay by the African Fashion Research Institute (AFRI) DR ERICA DE GREEF, JOHANNESBURG, FEBRUARY 2026 Fashion images matter. They act as evidence, as sites of material, socio-political and cultural knowledges. Paintings, and portraits in particular, precluded the words that fill fashion textbooks as the site of culture, aesthetics and the material representations of the day. Photographs now fill the textbook, their promise of truth eclipsing the speed of the fashion sketc