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Jacksonville’s Amari
Young wears traditional western-styled clothes from Talbots at Jacksonville Beach.
Photography by Kevin Radford.
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Spears created
this “simple dress,” worn by Patricia Williams, with
hand-woven Bógólanfini (mud cloth). The hand painted Warriors
Belt design symbolizes strength and preparedness.
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Many admire flowing traditional African robes like
agbadas and bu-bus when worn by others. However, many find it
difficult to imagine wearing these garments themselves.
Skeptics often wonder how they will gracefully handle a garment’s
oversized sleeves getting caught on a doorknob or entangled in a
steering wheel. Some dread that their garment’s long hemline will
get caught in the gas pedal of their car or get in their way while they
are navigating a staircase.
With these
apprehensions, many don’t bother including traditional African wear in
their daily attire. Instead, many put traditional African
clothing in the category of “ceremonial” or “special occasion”
clothing. Such dressers pull from their closets their African
clothing only when attending weddings or other special ceremonies.
However,
each traditional or even contemporary styled garment made from
traditional textiles is a cultural masterpiece. Traditional hand
woven textiles such as kente, kuba, ashoke, and adinkra have a wealth
of history, and weavers depict spiritual and moral lessons into each
design. Naturally, the cultural pride of wearing the masterpiece
often spills over into all aspects of the wearer’s life.
The
acceptance of traditional textiles has more than an aesthetic
value. It has an economic one. As long as there is a market
for traditional fabrics, weavers will remain employed as weavers of
traditional fabrics and pass the ancient traditions to our youth.
The youth will then carry the art form forward and apply modern
technology and inspiration to the tradition.
My
challenge as a contemporary wearable art designer is to strike a
delicate balance between the use of traditional textiles, culture and
art, with contemporary fashion, function and fit. For instance,
the simple crop jacket that Amari Young of Jacksonville, Florida is
wearing on the right supports the beauty of manufactured mud-cloth
(traditional mud-cloth is hand-woven). A young Malian designed
the cloth. His work is an example how our young are learning our
traditions and moving them into the 21st century.
Millée Spears of Khismet Wearable Arts,
202-678-4499
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Amari Young
strikes a delicate balance between western and African-styled fashions
from Millée
Spears.
Photography
by Kevin Radford.
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Spears wears a red
"simple dress" she made with rayon. Her accessories include a
beaded necklace and cuffs from Kenya, and a silver and gold ring that
the late jewelry designer Jamal Mims created.
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