Cloth and Fashion

In the ten years or so since I first wrote this section interest in African fashion has grown dramatically, a number of both academic and popular books have been published, and images that once had to be sought out in obscure magazines on bookstands in West Africa are now widely available on Facebook. It was often argued that fashion is an attribute only of the Western capitalist system to be contrasted, favourably or otherwise, with the supposed stability of dress styles in so-called "traditional societies". In fact although we have only fragments of evidence as yet there is enough to suggest that at least some aspects of dress are subject to the vagaries of fashion in virtually all societies. As far as Africa is concerned, as early as the C17th European merchants on the Gold Coast were complaining that annual changes in local taste for imported cloth was leaving them with cargoes of un-saleable merchandise to return to Europe. On the other side of the continent importers of the glass beads that went to make the elaborate jewellery of the pastoral peoples of Kenya and South Africa found regular changes in taste there too. Of course the "fashion mechanism" is different in different types of societies, but that doesn't mean that fashion itself cannot be present.

Fashion Jenne style, early C20th postcard.

In the twentieth century, and particularly in the years since the 1960s when many African nations recovered their independence, the extent of African contacts with Europe and America have dramatically increased. The wide availability in urban communities over recent decades of magazines, then television, video, satellite television and the internet, coupled with easy access for the wealthy to Europe and the USA, has transformed the range of references from which local fashions are drawn. Styles propagated by the wealthy are quickly copied and dispersed among students and urban workers. In some cases these fashions are entirely based around local responses to external styles, as in the notorious "Sapeurs", self-proclaimed fashion victims of Kinshasa lead by the Zairean music star Papa Wemba. More usually though, there is an influence from and an incorporation of international fashions into aspects of local dress.

African textile traditions, in this case Malian bogolan, provide inspiration for designers and textile manufacturers in Africa. Picture from an advertisement for Woodin, leading textile producers in Côte D'Ivoire.

The impact of these developments on African cloth goes beyond the selective adoption of new materials such as synthetic fibres and lurex. Many designers working in Africa are attempting to give their work a local appeal by utilising traditions of weaving and textile design in contemporary dress styles. This is in turn feeding back in the form of new demands to the producers of these cloths, leading to modifications in design, and in some cases to the creative exploration of new design directions. This is particularly apparent with a growing number of designers active in the 1990s working between Paris and the capitals of Francophone Africa from Dakar and Abidjan to Niamey, including the late Chris Seydou, Xuly Bët, and Alphadi. Other key figures include Kofi Ansah in Accra, Oumou Sy, Pathé O, and Makeda.

Designers often use local materials with wit and flair. Taken from the Abidjan magazine Espace Mode, this illustrates the work of Angy Bell (left) and Kofi Ansah (right.) Photos: Laure Mode

At street level ready made clothes, both new and more affordably, imported second hand clothes from Europe and the USA, are worn interchangeably with locally sewn outfits. The tailors and seamstresses that make these are continually modifying their output as new vogues are introduced, yet distinctive local styles remain apparent. The local interacts with the global in interesting and unpredictable ways - at the moment for example, Adidas style tracksuit trousers are de riguer among nomadic Fulani youths in Northeastern Nigeria when they get dressed up to visit town on market days.

FIMA is a festival of African fashion held every two years in Niamey, Niger. Search Google Images for views.