Le Pagne and African-made fashion
Display at R.W. King, Douala One of the first stops I made while in Douala was to buy pagne , African fabric, at R.W. King. Since a couple of years, women's clothing made with pagne is popping up in Saks Fifth Avenue and other upscale retailers' ads, at corresponding prices, in the many hundreds of dollars: Suno and Edun ; in France, Toubab Paris .* In Edun's case, it certainly helps that a celebrity ( Bono ) and his spouse, Ali Hewson--are behind it. These trademarks have one thing in common: non-African founders, which is sad, as the same thing happens in all design fields, and often not only for Africans, but all "developing" countries: if the designer is African (or Indian, or even Chinese), she/he is ignored by major Western media or trade representatives (retailers, galleries). On the other hand, when finally Africa joins the rest of the economically wealthy world, and I am convinced the day will come, this will become b...