Of Fashion And Of African Identity: The Paradox Of Cultural Capital.

I sat at the reception after the bride and groom had exchanged their vows in church. Then a thought came to mind, so after today, what does the future hold for the couple? That was when I realised how amazing and funny the bride was. She was uncomfortable in her tight, white laced, wedding gown and high heeled shoes. The same could be said for the groom, in his perfectly smooth tuxedo.

I ask myself, is it a must for couples to go through this pain all in the name of fashion and a sense of belonging? With the advent of internet and social media, it will be a lie to say that it has not brought about tremendous change in the world. Talk of interactions with other countries or continents in both economic and friendly terms. It has made it easy for people to communicate and comment on other people’s profile. For some people, social media is where they feel free and can do whatever they want.

It becomes a community of interest, where different people share similar ideas and therefore tend to influence each other. But in every society, it becomes a problem when this interaction tends to threaten the foundation on which it is built. And in Africa to be precise, it has begun to create a problem of identity and change in lifestyle. All in the name of socialisation and globalisation. As Africans, we have various ethnic groups with unique and sometimes similar lifestyles. It is what sets us apart from the other continents.

It is our identity! Although Africa is made up of different countries with different cultures, we have many things that people can use to identify us with. And one of them is our dressing. Our way of dressing alone is enough for us to be identified by throughout the world. Just as the Indian women, are recognised wherever they go, by their Sari, Ghagra choli or Lehenga choli.

These clothes although different, are worn by different people in rural areas of India. But that does not matter to the other continents, because they are all seen as Sari and Indians are known for wearing that. As Africans what do we have to show to the world, when we are rather coping what other people do. It is not just coping, but coping blindly. We fail to realise that, the Europeans and Americans dress based on their weather conditions. During winter, they wear warm clothing to keep them warm, and during summer they wear light clothes because the weather becomes hot for them.

But what do we see in Africa, we wear clothes because that’s what is trending, therefore everyone has to join the bandwagon, so as not to be left out. We as Africans have started moving from our traditional mode of dressing to the western way of dressing, especially Ghanaian women. We sometimes, seem to forget that our parents used to dress in their beautiful kaba and slit, using African prints.

They neither exposed their boobs or their waist but they were looking as beautiful as ever. They represented the typical African woman. But what do we see today? We see our sisters and daughters dressing to kill, as they say. They wear clothes that expose their private parts and when they are attacked and raped, they blame it on irresponsible men. We fail to probe and look for the root cause, as there is no smoke without fire. They wear this mini dresses they call “crop top, tattered jeans” among others.

And I wonder how people will decide to wear dresses with such funny names. You use your hard earned money to buy trousers that are already torn, all in the name of fashion. The male genders are also not an exception.

They are facing similar problems in fashion today as well. Young men today wear shirts and trousers so tight, it seems as though they are not breathing.

They call this style of dressing “London wear”. Since it is a London something, should it not be lose and free? Because we believe everything in London is better than what we have in Africa.

They also wear this same tattered trousers and place the waist on their buttocks like they were uneducated. But some men have taken bold steps to represent African continent wherever they were with their style of dressing.

The likes of former president of Nigeria General Olushegun Obasanjo and the current president his excellency General Mohammed Buhari. Our very own president, his excellency John Dramani Mahama who represented us at the United Nation (UN) in his fugu.

How elegant and proud he looked in it. His excellency was a proud Ghanaian and African. In recent times however, we can see that there have been conscious effort to revive and promote the use of African print.

We will give thanks to our former president John Agyekum Kufour for making it official that, on Fridays we wear dresses made with African print.

We also have fashion houses like Ankara, fashion Africa and Aso ebi whose sense of fashion revolves around the promotion of African identity through their styles and use of African print.

Although they are doing a great job, we need to continue motivating them so that we as Africans, can project ourselves to the whole world with an identity that will remain forever and ever.