This book is an interesting, if somewhat uneven, compendium intended to reveal the dynamism, creativity, and complexity of African fashion. It includes case studies of fashion in particular cultures; profiles of individual designers; and a look at fashion in the diaspora, including ways that individuals negotiate post-colonial identity and express Africanness in a global, transnational context. The essays explore many forms and aspects of fashion, ranging from the way imaginative high-style couture functions in both Africa and on the world stage, to the way various local styles are interpreted and executed by local seamstresses and tailors, to the prevalence and meanings of secondhand clothes. Given the fluid way it moves from one aspect of fashion to another, the book allows the reader to fully grasp the scope and complexity of the subject. The varied focus on particularized designers, tailors, entrepreneurs, and consumers also fosters an appreciation of the myriad decisions, innovations, and skills involved in each of the changing styles.
Contemporary African Fashion is beautifully designed and graced with compelling photos. The editors have chosen to use an accessible, non-academic style with lists of further readings rather than footnotes. Most essays are written by scholars working in the field who are writing from their own fieldwork and observation.
Together, the essays reinforce the idea of ever-evolving tradition and cultural interaction, and the great importance of personal appearance on the African continent. While the composite picture that emerges is informative, it is the richness of the specific stories that make this anthology compelling. For example, Suzanne Gott’s study of Ghanaian kaba, a three-piece woman’s ensemble, not only traces the history and varieties of the outfit and shows the way it combines indigenous and European elements, but also explains its significance as a sign of mature womanhood. Gott explains the sometimes double-edged communicative meanings of the named cloth patterns, and the way women judge one another on the quality and appropriateness of the fabric they incorporate as well as the ensemble they put together. Since kaba is made to order, the creation of any given outfit is a collaborative process. Joanna Grabski’s “The Visual City,” which explores the role of tailors in Dakar, Senegal, reinforces many of these same ideas. It chronicles the great range of form, price, and style in a city with over 20,000 tailors. Another author, Hudita Nura Mustafa, profiles one of Dakar’s more high-style innovators, Oumou Sy, whose work ranges from ready-to-wear to made-to-order to performance costume, all of which alludes to meanings of Senegalese and African identity.
Other essays reveal still more aspects of fashion. Elisha Renne chronicles contemporary wedding fashion in Lagos, Nigeria, highlighting the increasing importance of the Western white wedding and the way fashion can express individuals’ negotiation of/ambivalence about “traditional” and “modern” identities. Rebecca Green focuses on the Madagascar lamba and its connection to burial shrouds. Shrouds are the means by which the deceased achieve “ancestor” status, and their descendants connect with ancestors through them. Lambas, like shrouds, are silk, and have resonance because of the ancestral association, but they also have new meanings in high fashion and performance art contexts. Heather Akou unpacks the many variations in the dress of Somali refugees in the Twin Cities, explaining how Somali dress has always been a bricolage tradition. Her description of the “Somali malls” is fascinating, and offers a fascinating glimpse of transnational cultural practice. Karen Hansen’s article on secondhand clothing in Africa (with special attention to Zambia) highlights another side of international exchange, but also stresses “clothing competence” and the discriminating, creative ways consumers select and combine garments and create new fashions out of the old.
Didier Gondola’s “Le Sape Exposed!” is one of the most interesting and well-illustrated essays in the book. Sapeurs are lower-class Congolese men who dress as dandies, creating intriguing personas or “false identities.” The tradition began in the colonial era when well-off Frenchmen gave their old clothes to the Congolese—first to prestigious chiefs, and later to the “houseboys” who served them. By the 1930s, the latter became fervent fashion connoisseurs. The tradition has not only continued in Africa, but also has been transplanted to Paris, where even poor immigrants dress in designer clothes. Today’s sapeurs present the fourth or fifth generation of these over-dressers, and the phenomenon has taken on mystical proportions.
For the folklorist, Contemporary African Fashion offers a wealth of ideas and information about the nature of tradition and individual creativity within a communal or social context. It not only offers interesting snapshots of a wide range of evolving traditions but also, as a whole, offers a conceptual model for approaching a subject on multiple levels and from multiple points of view.
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[Review length: 777 words • Review posted on April 27, 2011]