Why is it important, you may ask?
I don’t know if it is, I’m just one of those people whom, once an idea is stuck in their head, can’t get rid of it until it’s been thoroughly processed!
In this case the idea was: what’s the history of African fabrics and textiles? Why do African fashions tend to use certain colours and what drives the choice of fabrics? So, true to form, I set about finding out.
The main and most obvious fabric commonly in use nowadays is cotton – they grow it, pick it, spin it and weave it! It’s been around for ages. According to some sources, remnants of cloth were found somewhere in North Sudan around the fifth century!
Prior to that, apparently a popular form of textile was.....wait for it.......tree bark! A tribe in Uganda specifically used (and still uses for some ceremonial robes) the inner bark from fig trees. Still in East Africa, silk was popularly used as well. Sheep wool has also been around for the longest time in parts of North Africa – bet you didn’t know that they used to use camel wool as well! (Admission time, I didn’t even know camels had wool!)
If we’re going to go all the way back, then of course there were the feathers, the animal furs and the animal hides (I’m kind of glad we moved on from that to be honest!)
Cola nuts, various plants and trees all contributed to the dyes that were used to colour fabrics, with tie and dye being the most common method of colouring.
At the end of the day, the lesson I learnt was this: African fashion is a product of environment and circumstances – a case of working with what you’ve got.
A pretty good life lesson if you think about it.
It also involves several labour intensive steps and as we all know, labour = jobs. Just one more reason to buy African!
By the way, that site I mentioned last time works with suppliers who donate part of their proceeds to job creation charities in various parts of Africa – isn’t that awesome?!
Got to go now but till next time, keep working with what you’ve got divas (and divos)!!
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