By David Lewis
DAKAR, June 21 (Reuters) – When Adama Ndiaye quit banking in
Europe for life as a young clothes designer back home in
Senegal, there was no show in town at which she could show off
her wares. So she decided to put on one of her own.
“We offered a ticket, we were renting boats, we were renting
camels,” she said, explaining how she lured other designers to
the dusty, vibrant city of Dakar jutting out into the Atlantic
Ocean. “It was one day of shows and three days of fun.”
But with African fashion growing bigger and bolder at home,
and starting to register on the radar of design houses and style
magazines abroad, Dakar Fashion Week, 10 years on, a
thirteenfold increase in budget and 30 designers coming from
across the continent, is now a far more serious affair.
“Now it is just fashion,” Ndiaye added, between fielding
calls in preparation for the night’s show. “In the last few
years, you can feel that African fashion is getting bigger,
stronger and better.”
In an effort to make the extravaganza more accessible, the
week kicked off with a catwalk erected on Dakar’s Boulevard
Centenaire, more accustomed to parading soldiers celebrating
Senegal’s independence from France than sashaying models.
Designers displayed outfits drawing on influences from
across Africa and further afield, mixing modern styles with
colourful improvisations of traditional dress. Drab residential
blocks were lit up with orange, yellow and blue lasers as
thumping music drew hundreds out of their houses.
“This is great. We all love fashion. They have never done
this before here,” said Mbarka Mbodji, a street vendor doing a
swift trade in beef skewers and plastic sachets of chilled water
on the street corner overlooking the makeshift catwalk.
Shows wound up at the other end of the spectrum, in front of
Dakar’s booted and suited elite gathered on the manicured,
palm-fringed gardens of one of the city’s most expensive hotels.
Continued…
