Viewing The Nue Black Aesthetic at the Design Museum

Black, Bold and Beautifully Made: Inside the Design Museum’s Must-See Show

This November, The Nue Black Aesthetic gathers 16 of the most compelling names in contemporary design for an exhibition that is equal parts history lesson, style statement and love letter to the diaspora.

Some exhibitions ask for your attention; others simply take it. The Nue Black Aesthetic, arriving at the Design Museum this November, is firmly the latter. Guest-curated by Charlene Prempeh, the founder of A Vibe Called Tech and author of Now You See Me: An Introduction to 100 Years of Black Design, whose eye has become one of the most trusted in the field, the show brings together 16 designers and more than 100 objects across fashion, furniture, architecture, product design and sculpture.

The title is a knowing nod. It borrows from the Black Aesthetic movement of the 1960s and the New Black Aesthetic of the 1980s, then gives both a contemporary twist. These designers hail from diasporic communities with their own histories, references and rhythms, and Prempeh resists the temptation to flatten them into a single story. The result is a show that feels expansive, generous and thrillingly unpredictable.

Wander through its six sections and the delights come thick and fast. Taiba Akhuetie crafts furniture from synthetic hair, as tactile as it is provocative. Bianca Saunders, the menswear designer beloved by the fashion cognoscenti, brings her precise, sensual tailoring into the gallery. Football and fashion collide in LABRUM’s high-fashion take on Arsenal’s 2024/25 away kit, created with adidas, a jubilant reworking in Pan-African colours that celebrates the club’s deep ties to the African diaspora. And in Strange Notes, Giles Tettey Nartey reimagines the West African balafon, quietly asking why so much West African design has been left at the edges of the canon.

Then comes the showstopper. The exhibition closes with Mfon, a new site-specific chandelier by Nigerian American designer Ini Archibong, hand-blown in Murano glass and luminous enough to stop you mid-step. Its name means “grace” in Ibibio, and it more than earns it.

Opening just days after Black History Month draws to a close, The Nue Black Aesthetic makes an elegant point: Black design is not a seasonal story. Consider it essential viewing for November and well beyond.