African Dress

Fashion, Agency, Performance

Karen Tranberg Hansen, D. Soyini Madison, Karen Tranberg Hansen

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780857854186
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Design
• Subtopic: Fashion Design

Dress and fashion practices in Africa and the diaspora are dynamic and diverse, whether on the street or on the fashion runway. Focusing on the dressed body as a performance site, African Dress explores how ideas and practices of dress contest or legitimize existing power structures through expressions of individual identity and the cultural and political order. Drawing on innovative, interdisciplinary research by established and up and coming scholars, the book examines real life projects and social transformations that are deeply political, revolving around individual and public goals of dignity, respect, status, and morality. With its remarkable scope, this book will attract students and scholars of fashion and dress, material culture and consumption, performance studies, and art history in relation to Africa and on a global scale.

PART I

Dressed Bodies and Power

– 1 –

Dressing for Success: The Politically Performative Quality of an Igbo Woman’s Attire

Misty L. Bastian

When I first went to the field in southeastern Nigeria in the late 1980s, I was privileged to live with a woman I will call Nwanneka, who was a veritable artist of dress. West African dress practice has been well-described by anthropologists, historians, and art historians as a potent form of wealth (Heath 1992; Daly et al. 1995; Galletti et al. 1995; Bastian 1996; Masquelier 1996; Mustafa 1998; Rabine 2002; Allman 2004a; Byfield 2004; Renne 2004; Kriger 2006). However, the performative and political quality of that dress is less well-explored, with some exceptions (Hendrickson 1996; Allman 2004b).

Women’s wealth in Igbo-speaking areas has historically been encoded in lavish displays of cloth and jewelry. Clean, rich, and eye-catching dress helped prove a woman’s worth. If a woman emerged unkempt from her house, she was likely to be treated with disdain. People would inquire about her health, and she might be offered a better wrapper and hairdressing services. A woman hoping to demonstrate her mastery of feminine skills would never be caught in anything but a contained and controlled state of dress. Her control of dress practice must appear effortless, a part of everyday routine. Away from home, a woman pursuing public stature must wear striking clothing while observing local norms of modesty and restraint.

This chapter explores how one highly respected and deeply political woman used her wardrobe strategically to negotiate her social status, as well as that of her lineage and household, including the anthropologist living in her house. Thanks to her beauty, charisma, and wealth-in-cloth, and to the select clients and kin who borrowed from her wardrobe, Nwanneka’s politically charged fashions circulated in public clothing spectacles. Such spectacular use of dress constituted a particular political performance with ramifications for larger questions of how politics around the globe are encoded.

First Impressions: Nwanneka at Home

I first met Nwanneka in February 1987. She had heard about my interest in working in the city’s Main Market through one of her daughters, an undergraduate at a university in the United States. As Nwanneka later told me, she was intrigued to meet an American who wanted to learn about Onitsha, the city containing what Nwanneka called her home village. When I was ushered into her bungalow, my first impression was that I had stumbled into a female aristocratic salon.

Nwanneka was dressed in one of her favorite outfits: a dark red agbada (Dutch wax cotton print) wrapper with matching, low-cut blouse. Everything was crisply starched and pressed. Her hair was braided with attachments and pulled back into a large bun. Her Western-style jewelry was gold, set with small diamonds: earrings, necklace, and bangles. Placed by her armchair, her soft, black leather sandals with small heels exposed her feet and red toenails. Whenever Nwanneka moved, there was a strong and pleasing fragrance from her perfume.

Several gentlemen wearing stylish long shirts and trousers were in attendance. My arrival had interrupted the presentation of kola: a small table with a plate containing kola nuts and a kitchen knife was placed in front of a high-ranking male guest wearing an embroidered, red velvet cap. One of the younger men vacated his chair for me, and I was invited to draw closer to Nwanneka and tell her about my journey. Nwanneka and her friend “the Chief” then plied me with kola, beer, Fanta and chin-chin, a fried dough snack. The Chief and his younger male friends stayed for dinner.

I was too much of a greenhorn to know, but everything that occurred during this first meeting had been carefully choreographed, including Nwanneka’s clothing, the guests who were present when the nwa bekee (white person) arrived, what people ate and drank, and who had dinner with Nwanneka and her unusual visitor. The Chief was Nwanneka’s friend, age-mate, and would-be business partner, who loved to demonstrate his fluent English and sophisticated ways. Nwanneka cooked the dinner earlier, demonstrating gendered competence to the Chief, graciousness to the bekee, and disdain of the Chief’s junior clients, who served themselves only after the Chief and I had taken the choice pieces of meat from the communal pot. Those who were not invited to dinner ­received a political message: They were not of the proper status to eat with such select company. Still, they could tell all of Onitsha about Nwanneka’s sartorial tastes, her local and bekee guests, and how the new bekee was feasted along with the Chief. This telling and retelling of my arrival in Onitsha launched Nwanneka’s campaign to establish herself as one of the town’s leading female citizens.

Burying Charlie Parker: Performing Fashion, Performing Politics

In addition to instructing me about the arts of politics and life, Nwanneka taught me how to dress for success, Onitsha-style. Soon after my arrival, Nwanneka announced that we would attend a funeral for an uncle (FB), who was popularly called “Charlie Parker.” She took an exceedingly long time to dress, finally appearing in a lace blouse, George wrapper, and shiny scarlet-and-gold headdress.1 She wore a coral necklace with gold pendant, earrings, and a purse and shoes that matched the headdress. On this initial night of “wake keeping,” no funeral events began until after 9:30 p.m., so Nwanneka told me to attend Saturday’s events. In the interim, I should go find “traditional wears.” On Saturday morning, she would assess whether my dress and I reflected well on her household and “the late.”

Opening my suitcases, I looked for anything that might pass for “traditional wears.” Fortunately, I had been to the Port Harcourt market to practice my fledgling Igbo and purchased a double wrapper of akwete, a strip-woven cotton fabric that many Igbo-speakers consider the true indigenous style of weaving. The akwete wrapper was bright red with black, white, and yellow stripes. Since I did not have a suitable blouse, I selected a long, white linen shirt that reminded me of the shirts worn by men in south­eastern Nigeria. Although I did not possess any matching accessories, I had some imitation coral ceramic beads.

Around dawn, Nwanneka returned for a nap. Too nervous to go back to sleep, I ironed the shirt and wrapper. Even at this early stage in my acquaintanceship with Nwanneka, I understood that how I appeared in her company was important. This funeral would also be, as I wrote in my field journal, “my first real anthropological experience in Onitsha,” so I felt a sense of occasion. But tying the wrapper around my waist seemed impossible. No matter how much I pulled the thick akwete cloth, it began to unravel as soon as I moved. Just as I was contemplating sneaking back to Lagos to catch a flight to the United States, Nwanneka emerged from her bedroom, took one look at the mess, burst out laughing, and sent me back to my room to put on something else. I was instructed to iron the akwete again, this time to make sure that it was stiffly starched. I was also told to put on a slip before attempting the all-important wrap.

Returning from her bedroom, Nwanneka brought a handkerchief, which she tore into strips and tied firmly to the knotted ends of the bottom wrapper. She wrestled the cloth around my waist, tied it at the back with the handkerchief strips, and covered the fix with the top of the cloth. Bundled into seven yards of fabric, I could hardly breathe, but I could move and sit down comfortably. She thought the linen shirt hilarious: “Grandmother on the bottom; man on the top!” Nonetheless, she allowed me to wear it, calling it “oyibo [white person, slightly derogatory] style,” noting that white women rarely have the shoulders or back to carry off the revealing lace blouses worn by Igbo fashion experts. When I brought out my imitation coral necklace, Nwanneka surprised me, approving it as modest and age-appropriate.

Even though I had “no hair, no earrings,” she explained that a head tie was too advanced at this stage, which was a relief after the fiasco of tying the akwete on my own. I later learned that the head tie was the part of the Igbo high fashion display that Nwanneka farmed out to others, notably a younger half-sister who was renowned for her skill at “tying head.” In return, the sister often borrowed pieces of Nwanneka’s gold jewelry or wrappers for her own displays.

My part of the day’s fashion performance was to pay respect to Charlie Parker, honor Nwanneka, and complement her elaborate presentation. The nwa bekee in akwete and imitation corals, “oyibo style,” was sensational enough to cause the attention and talk she was looking for. I was only going to be on view briefly, to excite interest; then she would take over adding glamour and generosity.

When we arrived at the funeral compound, the reception was what Nwanneka had hoped for. Everyone murmured her name or called out a praise name for the most lovely or well-dressed women: “Ezenwaanyi [Queen of Women]!” One brash, younger woman even yelled an English praise to me, “Our clothes fit you, onye ocha [white person, polite form]!” Nwanneka’s outfit was worthy of the praise; it was discreetly sumptuous: an ivory lace blouse with traces of gold thread, another George wrapper in dark green with golden palm trees woven into the fabric, gold and diamond jewelry, golden slipper sandals, and a beautiful, dark green head tie that matched her wrapper.

This entrance was sealed in the crowd’s mind as a favorite when Nwanneka’s driver, Linus, ostentatiously opened the trunk of the Mercedes, unloading cases of soft drinks and beer, along with jerry cans of palm wine. This sparked applause and praise, since the expectation of food and drink drew people to funerals. The chief mourners were pleased, as close relatives share the burden of providing for funeral attendees. Charlie Parker’s eldest son fanned Nwann...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I DRESSED BODIES AND POWER
• PART II MATERIAL CULTURE, VISUAL RECOGNITION, AND DISPLAY
• PART III CONNECTING WORLDS THROUGH DRESS
• PART IV TRANSCULTURATED BODIES
• Index