Fashion was born in Africa
By Ciku Kimani
While I was agonising over whether
to cut it into a nice bald style (the thought was quickly discarded), or let it
continue with its sporadic growth, I remembered that one of today's hot
hairstyles resembles my little girl's.
She would feel right at home in one
of our trendy malls on a Sunday afternoon when teenagers are out in their
droves.
Come to think of it, she would be
right at home with the Turkanas, they still hold the Mohawk dear and methinks
they look rather fetching.
All these hairstyles, including
dreadlocks, and cloth trends originated from Africa.
Did you see Louis Vuitton, one of
the worlds's renowned designers, incorporate the Maasai shuka in his designs?
What more proof do we need that
Africa, indeed, inspires fashion?
Think of the G-string, that
miniature fashion item so hated by big women for "deep sea fishing"
(wink, wink), valued by slim women for its comfort and sexy feel, revered by
men for its "I dare you attitude", and confusing to older women -- I
will never forget the day my mother referred to it as "that little cloth
for dusting shoes", huh? It was mine, I was hurt.
Online encyclopedia Wikipedia traces
its origin to the native Americans.
I could refute that argument, but
since in Africa we were cursed with the inability to keep written records, I do
not have the upper hand on the argument.
Besides, we all know by now that
Americans (well, not the native ones) have a way of running with an idea, even
when it is obviously not theirs, but I think even before the native Americans
discovered the phrase "cover the privates", Africans were wearing
G-strings.
To date, some African tribes who
have resisted "civilisation" still don them rather comfortably.
In our brain-washed minds, we might
frown upon these people who still wear the unprocessed leather G-string but
trust me, not so long ago, those not so far ahead of you in the family tree
happily wore them everywhere.
What joy (and shock) I had when I
once toured Lodwar -- men and women comfortable in their naked bodies, sagging
or not. But I digress.
The art of wearing make-up is
attributed to the Greeks and the Egyptians. This is easy to believe as they are
on record for being among the first to keep records.
Egyptians feature greatly in the Old
Testament, and that is proof enough that they decorated themselves, but even
before Africans were exposed to the rest of the world (or is it before the rest
of the world was exposed to Africa), they still dyed their hair.
The Maasai and the Turkanas still do
it, and not with the chemical hair dye now available, theirs was pure ochre.
I once used it on my hair, what a
bad idea! I couldn't wash it off for months, but it rubbed off on everything
that came in contact with my hair, not to mention the smell.
Let's not even go into jewellery and
multiple piercings and the painful looking tattoos from our Sudanese brothers
in Sudan -- no one is going to convince me that they got that from the West.
I so subscribe to the theory that
the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Fashion revolves as opposed to
evolving -- nothing is new under the tropical sun, or any other sun.
The designers might try to convince
us that they come up with new things every season, but all they change is the
size of the models who seem to get smaller, probably the only fashion thing
that did not originate from Africa.
Have yourself a fashion conscious
day and pay homage to our African ancestors; Dolce and Gabbana have got nothing
on them.
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