SEMANTICS

Oct 7

Western academia is preoccupied with positioning traditional sub-Saharan African clothing as primitive and tribal as if in the early stages of cultural development compared with more sophisticated western clothing. This ethnocentric viewpoint results in a confirmation bias regarding the types of garments selected for inclusion in or exclusion from the history books, and it equally affects the language that is used.

WORDS USED IN THE TITLES OF BOOKS

The data was taken from my personal library of English language books and journals on African clothing and textile history (total 89). The data does not include anthropology or critical theory publications

The words ‘textile’, ‘cloth’ or ‘weaving’ are used in the titles of almost every publication on the subject despite the fact that the textiles these books refer to are designed to be worn as garments (wrapped toga-style, sarong-style or turban-style) and should rightfully be labeled ‘robes’, ‘skirts’ and ‘hats’. They don’t fall short of the definition of clothing simply because they can be wrapped and unwrapped. Wearing garments through the act of wrapping is not unique to Africa (such as the aforementioned togas, sarongs and turbans in addition to scarves and sarees) yet African wrapped garments appear to be the only ones exclusively referred to using the language of textiles rather than clothing. The language of textiles is reductive as it humbles garments to the status of mere material and there is an also implied assumption that wrapped garments are antecedent to tailored garments. Yet when Rei Kawakubo creates clothing made from flat textiles with slits for the arms and head to protrude, Issey Miyake designs continuous tubes of fabric, or Yohji Yamamoto uses flat construction coupled with draping and wrapping eliminating the use of seams and darts they are described as ‘conceptual’, ‘avant garde’ and ‘innovative’ using the language of advancement.

When Eastern or Western designers create wrapped garments it’s referred to as ‘fashion’ but when African weavers create wrapped garments it’s referred to as ‘cloth’. The Japanese Avant-Garde 1910–1970 exhibition held at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1986) was described as “focused on aesthetics and concepts that existed beyond the realm of European thought”. I would like to pose the question; what if we recognized that traditional African clothing also exists outside the realm of European thought?