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Fashion Theory, Volume 13, Issue 2, pp. 133-140DOI: 10.2752/175174109X414240Reprints available directly from the Pubiisiners.Piiotocop ying permitted by licence only. 2009 Berg.

Victoria L. Rovine

Viewing Africathrough FashionVictoria Rovine is an assistantprofessor at the University ofFlorida, in the S chool of Artand Art H istory and the Centerfor African Studies. Her booi


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134 Victoria L. Rovine

Willemsen (1998), Revue Noire (1997-8), Mendy-Ongoundou (2002Mustafa (2002), Geoffroy-Schneiter (2005), and Rovine (2004). Otherecent work has explored specific local markets for clothing design iAfrica, revealing the degree to which these practices reflect creativchange over timethe hallmark of fashion. This analysis of local desigpractices is exemplified by Rabine (2002), Bastian (1996), Gondol(1999), Hansen (2000), Picton (1995), Renne (1995), Rovine (2008and Perani and Wolf (1999), and several pieces in the edited volumAllman (2004). All demonstrate the complexity of local fashion production, many explore the diverse aesthetic, economic, social, and politicaforces at work in the production and marketing of changing styles.

African fashion appears in the global. Western-dominated realm ohaute couture as well as in indigenous fashion economies, where designers may draw frorn international styles yet remain distinctly locaFashion is difficult to define in a global context, requiring a negotiation of the slippery territory between practices classified as "Africanand categories associated with the Western cultures. Fashion is usuallassociated with a particular market for modern. Western garmentbeginning in mid-nineteenth-century Paris and since then centered ithat city, in Milan, and in New York. Africa, and other non-Westersites, has no place in this conception of fashion, except as an occasionasource of inspiration. As Niessen has asserted, a reassessment of thiconception of fashion is long overdue: "A great divide between the studies of Western fashion/clothing processes and the universal phenomenoof dress/adornment still obtains. As a result, global dress events of profound implication for fashion theory are kept either hidden or barrefrom scrutiny" (Niessen 2003: 250).

Temporality is central in this division between Western and nonWestern dress practices, epitomized by the all too prevalent discussioof non-Western dress in terms of an "ethnographic presen t" as opposeto the "perpetual future" associated with Western fashion's continuarush to the next season. In but one example of this tendency, a reportefor the New York Times breezily noted the absence of changing dresstyles in one rural Kenyan community, where British scouts for a modeling agency were looking for likely prospects: "Orma girls grow uwearing flip-flops, not heels. Their fashion is the same every seasoncolorful robes that billow with the breeze and shield virtually every bof flesh" (Lacey 2003: 2). By declaring their dress to be unchangingthis reporter implicitly excludes Orma attire from the realm of fashionYet Joanne Eicher, whose research on African dress practices has beein the forefront of non-Western fashion studies, notes: "Fashion is, afteall, about change, and change happens in every culture because huma


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Viewing Africa through Fashion 1 3 5

That African dress has changed over time is clearly evident, evenif those changes have never heen explored in terms of fashion. TheWestern influence on African clothing has heen well documented, andoften characterized as a "loss" of Africa's traditional cultures in the faceof overpowering Westernization or Glohalization (the two terms areoften used interchangeably). A clear example of this rhetoric of loss canbe found in Angela Fisher's immensely popular and lavishly illustratedbook, Africa Adorned. Over the course of her many visits to Africa,she noted the disappearance of "some outstanding styles of jewelry anddress," and she found that groups whose "cultural and moral frame-work is still strong" were able to resist transformation from traditionalto Western dress (Fisher 1984: 9-10).' While certainly the drive to colo-nize and convert Africans led to coerced or forced adoption of Westernclothing, it is important to recognize that the presence of Western stylesin Africa today often constitutes a creative adaptation rather than acapitulation.

By exploring the m ovem ent of clothing forms between African andWestern culturesexchanges that flow in both directionsthe articlesin this special issue demonstrate the inadequacy of the "change as loss"model. Many of the styles of clothing that are produced in Africa's highlyinternationalized urban centers draw from diverse sources, enrichingrather than impoverishing their distinctly African styles. As is the caseeverywhere, African designers and consumers draw forms and stylesfrom outside their immediate orbit, making these forms their own. AsHendrickson notes, the identities associated with clothing may shift asgarments and styles travel: "When we see Africans using ou r products tocreate their identitiesand vice versawe learn that the meaning of bodyor commodity is not inherent but is in fact symbolically created and con-tested by both producers and consumers" (Hendrickson 1986: 1-16).

African Fashion/Africa as FashionOur examination of Africa's role in fashion production is particu-larly timely, for with the new millennium the continent is remarkablyprominent in the realms of fashion design and marketing. As I writethis introduction, Suzy Menkesarguably fashion's most widely readjournalisthas published a piece in the New York Times Style Magazineentitled "Next Stop, Africa." In it, she predicts that global fashion mar-kets are on the verge of creating "a fashion first: a popular movementthat sees the beauty and craft in sub-Saharan Africa" (Menkes 2005:60). Since 2002, the year of the conference in Iowa Gity that inspired


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While Africa's profile in international fashion circles has beeheightened by its appearance as a source of inspiration for Westerdesigners, the many African designers who are themselves engaged iinnovative transformations of African style receive little attention in thinternational fashion press. Their work emerges out of a long history ofashion in Africa, a continent whose styles of dress provide insights intboth ancient cultures and the latest global fashion trend s. Many Africadesigners today create garments that make reference to or borrow fromlocal clothing practices, often melding these forms with internationainfluences. Their work spans diverse markets, from the seasonal runways of international haute couture to local markets, where garmentreflect swiftly changing local styles.Three of the articles presented here are focused on local fashion practices, yet all reveal the degree to which local and international fashionsystems are intertwined, so that while designations such as "Africanand "Western" can provide insights into the intentions of designers andmarketers, they often obscure rich histories of exchange. Gott analyzethe dramatic fashions of an Ashanti women's subculture, placing theiswiftly changing styles in the context of a long history of competitivdisplays of wealth. In her exploration of Dakar's fashion scene, Grabskdescribes how this cosmopolitan city provides fuel for the work odesigners in diverse markets. Green's work in Madagascar documentthe surprising intersection of fashion and funerary practice in a culturthat accords cloth great spiritual power. In addition, Loughran provides a survey of Africa's long history as a source of inspiration foWestern fashion design, and an overview of the work of one Africadesigner whose career straddles Africa and Europe. Taken as a wholethese articles describe the complexity of African dress practices, whicdraw from both deep local roots and from contemporary, internationatrends, shifting constantly to absorb new influences and adapt changinelements of indigenous garments.

Fashion: Indigenous EverywhereAs numerous past articles in this journal have demonstrated, the studof non-Western fashion as fashion, not as garb, costume, or dress, is growing field of inquiry (see, for example: Sun 1997, El Guindi 1999Dogbe 2003, and Nagrath 2003). In her 2004 survey of current anthropological analysis of dress, Karen Hansen noted that recent schoarship in a variety of academic venues "demonstrates that fashion n


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in particular was the first non-Western player in the ratified realm ofhaute couture: "... the 1980s was the first period when non-Westernfashion designers came to influence mainstream fashion, when Issey Mi-yake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Rei Kawakubo, along with a series of otherJapanese designers, proved themselves to be the leading fashion innova-tors of the world" (Skov 2003: 216).

Two publications that provided rich insights into the intersectionsof traditional and contemporary impulses in Asian fashion culturesare important precedents, and sources of inspiration, for the analysesof non-Western fashion presented here. China Chic: East Meets West(Steele and Major 1999) focused on multiple dimensions of Chinesefashionhistorical styles, the absorption of new influences, revivalsof historical styles, and the internationalization of those styles. Re-Orienting Fashion: The Clobalization of A sian D ress (Niessen et al.2003) explores contemporary Asian garments as symbols of local iden-tities, diaspora communities, and international chic. While African andAsian fashion systems have in common only their mutual "otherness"for the Western-dominated international fashion industry, our hope isthat this special issue will continue to demonstrate that fashion is not"indigenous" only to Western cultures.

AcknowledgmentsFor their support of my research, I thank the Rockefeller Foundation'sBellagio Study Genter, the Getty Foundation's G uratorial Research Grantprogram, and the University of Iowa (Arts and H umanities Initiative andInternational Programs). Many thanks as well to my former colleaguesat the University of Iowa Museum of Art. I am also grateful to LamineKouyat, Garlo Gibson, Ziemek Pater, Ly Dumas, Anna Getaneh, Mari-anne Fassler, and the many other designers in Africa and Europe whohave shared their time with me, and to Stephan Houy-Towner of theGostume Institute Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Manythanks , as always, to Florence Babb.Notes1. The same tendency is evident in Fisher's work with her collabora-tor Garol Beckwith. Fisher and Beckwith have produced several lushpublications, featuring their photographic work in Africa. These in-

clude African Ark (Fisher et al. 1990), Nomads of Niger (Fisher andBeckwith 1983), and the two-volume African Ceremonies (Fisher


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and received significant support from the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, International Programs, and the Project for the Advanced Study of Art and Life in Africa, all based at the University oIowa. The articles collected here were selected from two of the conference's five pane ls.

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Mendy-Ongoundou, Rene . 2002 . Elgances Africaines: Tissus Tradi-tionnels et Mod e C ontemporaine. Paris: ditions Alternatives.Menkes, Suzy. 2005. "Next Stop, Africa." The New York Times StyleMagazine Spring: 60.Mu stafa, Hu dita Nu ra. 20 02 . "Ou mo u Sy: The African Place, Dakar,Senegal." Nka 15 (Fal l /Winter) : 44-6.Nagrath, Sumati . 2 0 0 3 . "(En)countering Orientalism in High Fashion:A Review of Indian Fashion Week 2002." Fashion Theory 7(3/4):3 6 1 - 7 6 .Niessen, Sandra, Ann Marie Leshkowich, and Carla Jones (eds). 2003. Re-Orienting Fashion: The Globa lization of Asian Dress. New York: Berg.

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in Contemporary Mali. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Rovine, Victoria L. 2004. "Working the Edge: XULY. Bet's RecycledClothing." In Alexandra Palmer and Hazel Clark (eds) Old Clothes,New Looks: Second-hand Fashion, pp. 215-28. Oxford: Berg.Skov, Lisa. 2 0 0 3 . "Fash ion-N ation: A Japanese Global ization Exp eri-ence and a Hong Kong Dilemma." In Sandra Niessen, Ann MarieLeshkowich and Carla Jones (eds) Re-Orienting Fashion: TheGlobalization of Asian Dress, pp. 215-42. New York: Berg.Steele, Valerie and John S. Major. 1999. China Chic: East Meets West.New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Sun, Lung-kee. 1997. "The Politics of Hair and the Bob in ModernChina" Fashion Theory 1(4): 353 -65 .Van der Pias, Els and M arlo us W illemsen (eds). 199 8. The Art of AfricanFashion. Trenton, NJ, and The Hague: Africa World Press and PrinceClaus Fund.


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