Yvonne Brandwijk, Kinshasa, Paris of Africa 2025

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is known for its war, rebels and poverty, but when it comes to style and fashion it's capital Kinshasa is an inspiration for many people on the African continent. Here fashion is not the motor powering the rapidly growing economy, but rather an effect of this; the current economic and political circumstances are the flywheel that is allowing something that has always been in the population's DNA to flourish. Kinshasa, Paris of Africa 2025 is part of an ongoing multi media project, named Future Cities. For this project journalist Stephanie Bakker and photographer Yvonne Brandwijk discover the next generation of cities. (www.volkskrant.nl/futurecities) Kinshasa's first launch and print date was on July 15 2015 at the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant.