More African Fashion: Gold Coast Trading Co

FADER Magazine recently spotlighted Emeka Alams, the fashionable mind behind Gold Coast Trading Co, a label that wears its African influences proudly. Check out his signature designs here: http://www.livefromthecoast.com/

L'Afrique, C'est Chic

It may be cliché to say this, but I love fashion. I’m an avid fan of Lookbook and the Sartorialist, websites dedicated to documenting the beautifully dressed. I love nothing more than curling up on my sofa with a cup of tea in one hand and the latest copy of Vogue in the other, flicking through glossy pages covered in Chanel couture and Prada shoes that I can’t even dream of owning right now. And when I have the time, I enjoy roaming the streets of Soho in search of the perfect summer dress (something that still eludes me). The seeds of my love for all things chic were sown, however, not in New York City but back home in Lagos. I grew up submerged in style, but in a very different way to how it is experienced here.

I don’t often go to stores to buy clothing at home, because it’s usually cheaper and easier to get them made for you. Tailor-made clothes are an everyday part of life across the African continent, meaning that couture is in no way restricted to the moneyed elite. In Nigeria, one can easily get a trendy party outfit made to your exact measurements (and to showcase every curve) for $20 or less, including the cost of the fabric. Customised clothing isn’t just for special occasions either – my mother rocks boubous and dresses made of colourful ankara material every day. Fabric stores and markets are also a huge part of the local economy – Balogun Market, one of the biggest in Lagos, is a veritable nirvana of laces, jacquards and batiks in every conceivable shade, hue and pattern from all over West Africa.

What I love the most about getting clothing made back home is how much of a role the consumer and their cultural background plays in shaping the fashion world. Over here, a small group of designers determine what look is “in” – whether it’s jumpsuits or if grey is the new black. When you walk into a store in NYC no matter how varied the collections may be, the general “direction” of that season has shaped the designers’ choices and that is inevitably what buyers end up picking off the racks. At home, it’s a different experience. If, for example, I needed an outfit for a wedding, my choice of fabric would probably be determined by the bride, but I could complement it with others as I see fit. The style may be modified slightly by the tailor, but ultimately it’s me who gets to decide if I want a cap-sleeve with a sweetheart neckline, or if I want the embroidery in silver or gold. Also, what I wear may depend on if the bride is Yoruba (a buba and iro) or Urhobo (a skirt and blouse with a regal gele). What you wear isn’t determined by fashion editors’ lists of trends, but rather by the weather, custom and/or a sense of whimsy. Clothing – a functional part of everyone’s lives – is a means of creative expression for the masses, but is even more so when you’re a part of the process from yards and tape measures to fittings and zippers.

This is not to say that style exists in a void in Africa. Designers like Louis Vuitton and Boxing Kitten have drawn on African style for their collections. Magazines, bloggers and designers such as Arise, Pop Africana and Duro Olowu are becoming increasingly influential and many people (myself included) often draw inspiration from European clothes but rework them in traditional fabrics. But what I think makes African fashion so unique is how you can see art, function and tradition coming together in such a seemingly effortless way, elevating dressing beyond the mundanity of the mall without putting it out of reach in glass-fronted stores.

Cultural Diffusion: Flowing Both Directions

For many of us coming from immigrant families, we get sick of hearing about kids these days being Americanized...but what about Westerners being Africanized? Check out this video of the Dutch attempting Ethiopian Eskista!



Here's a link to Japanese doing Ethiopian dance...this one is more humorous than it is accurate:
http://www.youtube.com/user/sekaramuleba

The Joys of the Funeral

Ghana is said to have one of the most vibrant funeral cultures in the world. So what exactly is a “funeral culture”? At each stage of life- birth, puberty, marriage, and death- Ghanaians believe it essential that the entire community comes together to celebrate the transition of the individual into that new stage. This communal show of solidarity, affection, and recognition is thought to be an essential part of what shapes a person into a fully developed human being. The more elaborate the ceremony, the more the individual is said to be loved. To ensure that a befitting ceremony will be held, it is common for the burial to take place after a period of forty days when the family of the deceased would have had time to draw upon their financial resources and contact all acquaintances of the deceased about his passing.

The funeral itself is quite festive in nature and can often take up an entire day. For this reason it is often held on the weekend. Guests often dress themselves in matching funeral cloth and there is much food and music available for merrymaking. The grief of those in attendance, especially the family, is always tangible but the tone of the event is great joy. It is not uncommon for a funeral attendee to reply, “The funeral was very nice. Losts of fun”. Again, the funeral is a reflection of the Ghanaian perception of death as another stage in life to be celebrated.

It was in the spirit of this celebratory mood that the idea of the fantasy coffin emerged. These are elaborate coffins constructed to reflect a passion or skill that best characterizes the deceased. For instance, many teachers are buried in a coffin shaped like a pen, a farmer could be buried in a chicken shaped coffin, and a pilot could be buried in a plane. The coffins originated from a carver named Kane Quaye whose first fantasy coffin was created almost forty years ago at the request of a family member.

However, the funeral culture in Ghana is not without its critics. Some individuals criticize the practice for fostering an insincere show of mourning. For instance, it is not unusual for some of those in attendance to never have met the deceased or be closely connected to the family in any way. In addition, the practice of sometimes hiring professional criers to attend the event is also seen as detracting from the genuine grief of the family.

The heaviest criticism, however, is targeted at the enormous excess, which what is perceived as an enormous waste of resources. A frequently whispered sentiment at many funerals is, “the man was very poor and would have never been able to get these people to give him this amount of money if he were living. Perhaps if he had his medical condition could have been treated”. There are a number of individuals who believe that it is wrong to focus more on the individual in their death than in their life. Many people, especially politicians struggling to strategize policies to bring Ghanaians out of poverty, are dismayed by what they perceive as this needless show of wealth that often financially cripples the surviving family members. The government has often spoken of bans on excessive spending on funerals but such regulation of private activities is quite difficult to enact. This is especially true because families are always motivated by the fear that their loved one will be perceived as a nothing in the community without such a funeral.

For more information on the funeral culture in Ghana or to see some of the elaborately made fantasy coffins please check out a short video on the subject by National Geographics. Afterwards share your thoughts on the fantasy coffins, the “funeral culture” in Ghana, and its criticisms in the comments section below.

Perspective from an Outside Insider

Sometimes the moments of greatest clarity of one’s personal identity hide in the most seemingly mundane of circumstances. I take pride in the knowledge that once I have completed my studies at Columbia I will return ‘home’ and use my quarter of a million dollar education on improving the development of the nation in some capacity. A goal that a Kenyan friend cynically retorted “is everyone’s plan”.

Last semester I found myself spending weeks piecing together the fragmented bits of information available to me on the history of medicine in West Africa. Afterwards I walked with the self-confident strut of someone who had “figured it out”. To give the spark notes version of my findings, I had discovered that the British and many other imperialists introduced allopathic medicine merely as a tool of colonialisation. By challenging our traditional ways of medicine they sought to convince us of our encompassing inferiority and convince us of our need for imperialist governance. They succeeded in creating dual, competing systems of medical care that not only represent secular versus religious interpretation of illness but for some represented a political act of cultural affirmation.

The controversies upon which our two healthcare systems were introduced to one another shed much light upon the current failures of both the traditional and allopathic medicinal fields to adequately serve the needs of the Ghanaian population. It unveiled why so many Ghanaian babies die so soon after birth. Before the sacred eight day where, like their ancestors before them, they would have tasted the nsa (spirits) and nsu (water) that would have initiated them into our community. However, it only took five minutes of being an interviewee for a friend’s senior thesis project to make me ask myself what it was that I had really discovered.

The interview was simple. Just a few routine questions on how I prevented illness and treated myself when I was sick. It was in that moment that it struck me that in my course of historicizing the problem with healthcare in Ghana I never bothered to question how I was affected by the historical legacy. How was it that I could so completely and obliviously remove myself from the issue? In my countless hours pent preening over my computer screen while injecting key words into CLIO and praying for a ‘hit’ not once did I look inward. Not once did I ask ‘Where do I fit in and how does the historical legacy of the issue influence me?’

Perhaps my friend was right to voice her cynicism at my plans of return. Perhaps there is something about living here that allows us to unconsciously ‘other’ our own people in a way we may not realize. That allows us to differentiate between ‘them’ and ‘us’ and hinders our actual understanding of our culture. At least when an ostensible outsider is looking in to make policy reforms we are conscious of the limitations on his perspective. What are the implications of our ‘intended’ return if we do unconsciously inhabit these biases? Leave your perspectives on this issue below.