UNDER THE MANGO TREE--Tamsin Barzane

African fashion!!! Yes, the upcoming African Festival on Saminaka (Oct. 1-4) will include a competition, with prizes going to the best dressed male and female in African attire. While Saminaka sells traditional clothing at Cinnamon Brigade (soon to be folded into our cacao megastore), other excellent finds are available elsewhere in SL, and some will be sold at the booths in our festival market. But what about fashion IN Africa?

Basically African fashionista(o)s fall into four categories: those who follow changing textile fashions but who stick to traditional clothing shapes that change little (the wrapper and buba, the agbada or boubou "big gowns" for men, the men's caftan or dashiki or wrapper), those who wear what foreigners think of as traditional dress, but are really 20th century inventions (the long skirt with overblouse that can vary tremendously over time; the pants/top combos from wax prints for men), those who wear the latest foreign labels, and those who are couturiers, taking ideas and fabrics and transforming them into alta moda, international class Fashion with a capital "F."

This last group has members who have created spectacular looks featured in Paris and Milan, and I'd like to introduce you to one of my favorites, both for her outrageous twists and turns on traditional dress and objects, and for her artistry. Her name is Oumou Sy, an elegant woman in her fifties, and she is based in Dakar, Senegal, but has shown her works to international acclaim in Europe and elsewhere.

Ms. Sy has injected humor as well as beauty into her designs, possibly because she comes from theatrical roots--parlaying them into the foundation of the Dakar Carnival, and International Fashion Week in Dakar. She's always on top of things, creating the first cybercafe in Senegal years ago, along with an enchanting website.

Her stores in Geneva and Paris sell to the ultrafashionable, and she designs for World Music superstars like Youssou n'Dour. She's won the enviable couture Prince Claus award, as well as the French government's Legion d'Honneur.

Her designs sometimes inject matting, or small calabash gourds, or other items not usually combined with clothing, including masks and musical instruments.

When she takes an ethnic group as inspiration, her riffs are often awe-inspiring. A silver Tuareg item becomes aggrandized into a breastplate and helmet, or a gold Fulani earring becomes a sleeve.

Sy has not limited herself to the elegant fashions of her home area, but draws on inspiration from the entire continent--whether through materials (a lovely series of feathered gowns), textiles or accessories.

Sy's inventiveness and theatricality remind me of her age-mate Julie Taymore, the director and costumier who shaped Broadway's Lion King, as well as the films Titus, Frida, and the upcoming Spiderman, the Musical. With Sy's involvement in projects in partnership with her filmmaker husband Michel Mavros, such as the exciting Sahel Opera project (which he directs), perhaps her eye will turn in future to projects similar to Taymor's, injecting a new vision into art forms we are more familiar with.

And if her interests keep you more firmly rooted in couture? Then we have much to ahead to, since her own imagination and the visual resources of the continent seem inexhaustible. I guarantee you cacao's haute couture division is likely to feel the Sy excitement and figure out ways to absorb her magical touch with fabric's and fashion.

See some catwalk videos of Oumou Sy's work here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeiXgcDkVpI

and here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BotvDlSpbA