Clothes from the white dead.

My clothes live a hard life. The frequent handwashing is rough, and the red dust, sun and charcoal ironing also leaves its marks. Some white people have the idea that it isn't nessecary to dress up in Africa, and a lot walk around this continent in baggy shorts and creased shirts. Of course, occasionally you will also detect a Danish male development worker practising his inner desire for smart clothes and ties which he would never get away with in Denmark (but that is a different story).

Appearance matters in Africa. But the focus isn't on fashion, on what is in, it is more about cleanliness and ironing. Like in an advice from my grandmother. So, either I have new clothes tailormade, or I buy secondhand clothes.

And bying secondhand clothes is always an experience. Wether you go to Owino Market in downtown Kampala, equipped with patience to dig into the piles of clothes, or you visit a shop where the clothes hang neatly on hangers. You can always find some really nice clothes of distinctive labels. However, again, the Ugandans tend to categorise differently than I. Yesterday I went to this shop, looking for a shirt. The shopkeeper presented me with the top of a pyjamas. At least, it was a pyjamas to me. But to the shopkeeper this was 'a unique model, special design'. In some weird way she could be right.

Kafa Ulay - 'clothes from the white dead' - as they said so flatteringly in swahili - is big in Uganda as in many other countries in Africa. You always find a kafa ulay section in the markets, even as far out as in the refugee settlements in northern Uganda. More than once I have found people dressed in a T-shirt with a logo from a Danish bank. It is big business. Organisations and firms i.e. in Europe collect secondhand clothes form well-meaning people and ship it off to Africa. At one point you have probably yourself thrown your old clothes in one of these containers.

It does give the average African a relatively cheap choice of clothing. It is sort of prestigeous to wear clothes with a Western style. In general this is not a bad idea. But you might ask yourself why the Africans don't sew and sell their own clothes? Linen and cotton can grow well in this climate, and here is plenty of available labour. The fact is that this massive presence of Western second hand clothes actually undermines construction of a competitive and indigenious production of clothing. The kafa ulay is another example on misunderstood development. Read more here.

Comments

[Clothing]

Living in Africa myself (Admittedly, South Africa) I have noticed that a tendency amongst Africans is to be more concerned about what is neat and good, rather than a label that is ‘in.’ In Johannesburg, with it’s Western Urbanisation influence, is quite serious about name brand in amongst certain groups. But amongst poorer groups second hand is quite popular.

I don’t consider myself to be part of the poorer groups, but also buy second hand clothing periodically because it’s just so much fun when you do so. A lot of it comes from Denmark or Italy, actually. If I am buying new clothes, I tend to stay away from namebrands. They’re hardly worth the price. I’m far more interested in what looks good, than what is considered ‘good’ by the industry or media (most of those clothes I don’t consider amazing anyway.)