The Sunday Mail
THE colonial and apartheid systems deliberately came up with a distorted picture of the African identity.
Charles Mavhunga
This was done through the portrayal of Africans as grown children, barbaric, evil and animalistic.
As a result, millions of Africans developed a mindset of self-hatred.
The major goal of the colonial and apartheid systems was to distort the meaning of cultural symbols for Africans (including the clothing style) to gain control of the continent’s resources and portray Africans as incapable of charting their own reality.
However, the African clothing style must be revived to bring back the identity of Africans. The clothing style cannot be separated from the cultural values of people of a certain geographical space.
In the tourism industry, the clothing style forms the basic communication tool for the identity, customs, and individual nature of people in their original state.
The style of dressing is largely influenced by many things — which include cultural values inherited by the community, the family, the environment, the media, fashion trends and personal character.
The colonisation system used the cinema, among other media channels, to promote dominance of the European culture in Africa through dressing style. Africans ended up losing their identity and mimicked the European style of dressing.
The remnants of colonialism created an inherited culture in Africa, where Africans who were colonised by France would feel proud to mimic the French way of dressing.
For example, Zimbabwe was colonised by the British, and often Zimbabweans feel proud to mimic the British style of dressing, Mozambicans feel proud to bear the clothing symbols of the Portuguese, whilst Africans from the Democratic Republic of Congo copy the dress code of the French people because the country is a former France colony.
This domination by colonial powers through clothing is one of the reasons Africans look down upon themselves.
It is wrong for the African people to be identified with the lifestyles of former colonisers.
The invasion of the African mindset by the colonial powers suppressed the confidence of Africans to promote their cultural norms and values.
This resulted in the movement of the African cultural heritage to the periphery of history, thus promoting the enslavement of Africans.
To liberate Africans from a colonial mindset and self-pity, the Institute of African Knowledge (INSTAK) established the Heritage Village at the African Liberation City in Harare to showcase the African fashion in the tourism industry.
The major focus of the epic project is to promote the African identity by parading the African fashion style and identity in clothing.
The clothing style of people is a cultural expression and a construction of identity.
Researchers in fashion style in the tourism industry have established that clothing is a form of inter-cultural communication tool that reflects a culture.
Dress ethics are a reflection of an individual’s identity and an interpretation of the meaning of that person’s character, values and sense of confidence.
Dressing style is also a symbol of the ethical conduct of an individual in relation to economic status, education, social status, moral status, athletic ability, belief systems (politics, philosophy and religion) and level of satisfaction.
Colonial powers in Africa used the dressing style to remove Africans from the global world by promoting their fashion style and distorting the identity of the African attire through films and other various media tools.
European films reduced Africans to levels of self-hatred and made them fail to understand the legacy of civilisation and kingdoms, the birthplace of humanity.
In tourism branding, the vitality to construct the self-image of people is crucial in order to shape the perception of their reality.
It is, therefore, against this background that INSTAK developed the Heritage Village at the African Liberation City in Harare to assist Africans to develop an understanding of themselves through parading the African style of dressing.
Chinua Achebe holds that the warp and weft of African textiles are the visual embodiment of the culture of Africans’ beating hearts.
African textiles are the keepers of cultural identity, and the vibrant canvas paints the picture of the continent’s history and tradition.
African dressing styles have a place in African ceremonies and rituals that mark important life events and connection with the community.
For example, in Nigeria, the Yoruba’s Aso oke fabric symbolises an important traditional wedding ceremony for Africans.
The Aso oke symbolises the union of two families and the beginning of a new life together in African fashion.
In the same vein, the Pan-African movement harnessed the power of clothing in promoting the African identity and cultural values.
It adopted the colour green, which represents the lush vegetation of Africa. It also adopted red, which represents bloodshed and the struggles for the liberation of Africa to remove colonial powers; and black, which denotes the people of Africa.
This means dressing style symbolises the shared understanding of African norms, attitudes, ideas, beliefs, thoughts, knowledge systems, struggles and identity of the African people.
In tourism branding, the discourse of clothing is not a simple matter in the social and cultural context, religion, morals and art.
The clothing style guides the formation of a community or national ideology, hence the establishment of the Heritage Village to showcase African attire to the global world.
The confidence of Africans is largely defined by the spirit of self-expression through the restoration of identity.
The fashion system in Africa needs urgent restructuring to boost the African identity.
The Heritage Village is, therefore, promoting fashionomics in Africa to motivate the Pan-African fashion initiative on the continent.
Clothing cannot be separated from social life, and is an expression of the identity dimensions of Africans to become globalised.
Clothing is used as a medium of communication, promotion and even the formation of ideology.
It is important to note that clothing products are a form of visual manifestation of the cultural identity of people and a symbol of social cohesion for the Africans to become liberated.
Charles Mavhunga co-authored textbooks in Business Enterprising Skills and is currently studying for a Ph.D. in Management at Bindura University. He can be contacted at [email protected], Cell:0772989816.
