Dakar Fashion Week targets city's working class
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/22/3465013/dakar-fashion-week-targets-citys.html
DAKAR, Senegal -- Law
student Aminata Kande stepped out in a $25 blue wax print dress to watch lanky
models storm a makeshift runway wearing pieces that cost ten times that amount.
Dakar Fashion Week, an 11-year-old institution birthed in
the posh hotels of this West African culture hub, took its act to Guediawaye,
one of the most downtrodden neighborhoods of this sea facing capital. While
organizer Adama Ndiaye affectionately described the area as "the
'hood," the northern suburb has repeatedly been the scene of violent riots
over problems ranging from power cuts to seasonal flooding in this nation that
consistently ranks in the bottom tier on global development reports.
The show was part of a six-day event featuring 18 designers,
seven from Senegal and others
from as far away as Germany
and Brazil.
Shows were scheduled to be held in three different locations throughout Dakar.
Ndiaye said she hoped staging a show in a working-class
suburb would make high fashion as accessible to students like Kande as it is
for the wealthy.
"It is very important to show that beautiful things are
not only for rich people," said Ndiaye, who shows under the name Adama
Paris. She said that the clothes she displayed in Guediawaye were of the same
quality - and cost - as those that were to be featured later in the weekend at
a luxury seaside hotel.
"I want this neighborhood to see what we have, and if
it's a gown for 1,000 euros, then who cares? You don't have to be rich to like
Dior," she said while prepping the staging area behind the runway, which
was assembled on a sandy clearing normally used as a marketplace.
But a show in the suburbs is not exactly like a show
downtown. Senegalese designer Ramsen, who specializes in dark, loose dresses
adorned with foot-long feathers and other unusual accents, said she left some
of her pricier pieces at home both to accommodate the crowd and to protect her
more delicate creations.
"This is the suburbs, so people don't have the same
financial means," she said. "Also, as you can see, there is a lot of
sand out here."
The runway scene was also far rowdier than shows in the
capital, Dakar.
Thousands of Senegalese, who don't necessarily work in fashion, were vocal
about their opinions. They cheered lustily at a leggy model wearing hot pink
shorts by German designer Kathrin Huschka, and dozens of men jostled for better
views from parked minivans on a road overlooking the runway.
The loudest reactions were reserved for the more famous
models, especially actress Diarra Thiam, who was greeted to rapturous chants of
her nickname, "Lissa." The presenter later brought her out to blow
kisses to the crowd, which nearly toppled the control barrier on one side of
the T-shaped runway.
For designer Tapha Fall, the show was a kind of homecoming.
As a boy growing up in Guediawaye, he developed a love for clothes while
helping out his father, a tailor. He said the decision to stage a show in the
suburb would expose residents to global trends they might not otherwise
encounter.
"The people here already have their own style - urban,
a mix of American and French," he said. "But now they will see what's
going on in the rest of the world."
But Yannick Minko, an assistant to Lebanese designer Enzo
Itzaky, said designers could look to Guediawaye for inspiration.
"Style begins in the street," he said. "You
look at designers in America,
they are getting their inspiration from the Bronx, from Brooklyn.
So why can't it be the same here in Senegal?"
After the show, law student Kande suggested that inspiration
might come full circle. Though many of the items were outside her budget, she
said she had snapped a few photos of dresses she might want to wear. And as is
common in Dakar,
she said she planned to take advantage of cheap labor to add some
approximations of the outfits to her wardrobe.
"I'll see if maybe my tailor can make them," she
said.