Historical Interview on Nigerian Fashion Essay Example for Free

Historical Interview on Nigerian Fashion Essay In line with my background, I found it imperative to carry out this interview in Africa. This was made possible via Skype, as my granddad and mum had a 2 hours session with me on this topic, â€Å"How clothing was obtained in our family during their time and their sense of costume while they were still champions in the village. Other relative questions they attempted to answer in this interview are the nature of clothing production during their time, and how they had influenced their style of dressing. The interview was divided into two parts as clearly indicated above. The first questions were answered by granddad, while the later questions were answered by my grand mum. The era in focus is before colonization. It was an era commonly tagged the ‘pre-colonial’. Nigeria at this time had a very unique sense of costume, basically defined by the resources found within the African environment. They made do with what they had as there was no serious western or colonial influence. FIRST PART INTERVIEW WITH GRANDDAD This interview was conducted with my grandfather who joined me on Skype last night. My granddad is at his late 90, and had experienced different eras in Nigeria. With his wealth of experience as one of the few enlightened African man at his age, he comfortably took me on a ride to the past. In this interview, M represents the interviewer, and D represents the respondent M: What is your general view about African fashion? D: well, African Fashion is unique, decent and special. African fashion communicates in different ways. If you see a king in Africa, you wouldn’t want to ask questions before you you accept that he is a king. The royalty is often defined by their costumes. This is also applicable to native doctors, magicians and soothsayers. African fashion and costumes are original, only that lately, there has been an infiltration of western culture which seems to have adulterated the originality of our costumes, and the era of Obente, skin shoes, skin bags and cloths are beginning to go into extinction. M: Would you have preferred to go with the older costumes as against what’s trending now? D: I still wear traditionally made cloths even up till today. I’m a title holder of my community, and this position is often defined by one’s adherence to African values. I see Costumes as one of those values we must not discard. M: Can you succinctly tell me how clothing was obtained in those? D: Well, in those days, men would usually have little to cover their lower region while the women had a piece for their upper region and another for their lower region. Cloths were mainly gotten from animal skin and sometimes fibres made from trees. Usually, most of us made these cloths by ourselves, and sometimes we buy them. The means of obtaining them could as well differ, depending on who is involved. Then, we used to have trade by barter. Because I was enlightened and had government job, we would buy our cloths with some kind of money called Anderi; then, there was no naira and kobo. We were also engaged in trade by barter with some of the things we had. For instance if I needed a piece of skin to make my shoes or cloth, I would put up my yam or oil for sale. Most of the time, cloths were bought during festive period, like the New yam festival and the Akatakpa festival. Ordinarily, people find it difficult looking for what to buy as fashion was really not the priority as a then. The wealthy ones as of that time wore more beautiful deigns on their animal skin or bark cloth adorned with several accessories. It was always the influential families looked more adorned. M: Were you engaged in the actual buying and selling of cloths? Have you ever gone to the market looking for cloths? D: Like I said earlier, the African man in those days could wear just one piece of skin for days, so the issue of going to the market was really not there. These skins were locally made. The only time we started going to our local markets to buy cloths was when cloths were imported into Africa by the Portuguese and Britain. It was after then, that we began to wear what we have today as cloths, even though it had very low patronage as at then. M: Thank you dad: D: Thank you my daughter and face your studies squarely. SECOND PART INTERVIEW WITH GRAND MUM This interview was also conducted via the same medium (Skype) Here, ‘MM’ will represent the respondent while the interviewer’s remains M’ M: How was clothing made when you were growing up? MM: Clothing was usually made from animal’s skins and back of trees. This means that livestock and economic threes as well as other threes in the forest were sources of clothing. For the making of animal skin, the fur or hair would be shaved clean and compressed to soften, and then it would be tanned. This process unstiffens the hide, which becomes natural leather. After this leather is produced, it is either decorated with shapes and outlines, shells, beads or left plain, this could be as a result of choice of who it’s been made for. Leather clothing could be simple to make as it takes few days to be made. Bark cloth on the other hand was made by peeling off the inner bark of trees, after that is done; it is beaten until it becomes soft. Bark cloth was fashioned into skirts and robes long enough to float around. Then, we would use the fig tree for making bark cloth. Patterned bark cloth garments were made from the different colored bark of various trees, which were combined to create designs, in addition, the bark cloth was always painted for aesthetic purpose. At a point, we went into Batik cloth, which has been important to many African women. Here, pattern is applied to fabric to make it look beautiful. It is resist-dyeing method involving coating fabric with a dye-resistant substance and dipping the fabric into colored dye. I could recall how we used to make the dye-resistant substance from cassava root or rice flour and the chemicals called alum. The substance is boiled with water to make paste out of it for various designs. Once the paste is dry, the fabric is dipped into dye in large clay pots or pits. At the end of the day, a beautiful African fabric is made. M: How has this kind of cloth making influence your style of fashion in those days? MM: It depends on what you mean by style of fashion though. We have had very good sense of costume in those days. All our locally made shoes and bags must always have a touch of the design on our batik. The Batik design was usually seen as the type of clothing that must not be worn by men, because of the beautiful designs. Additionally, because the African woman, or better still, the Nigerian woman applies a lot of facial makeup, which she called ‘Uri’, she would always patronize Batiks that were beautifully designed. M: So when was considered the most appropriate time to wear Batik? MM: Anytime, but mostly during special events. In those days, if you wanted a man to respect you, then you must go with very well designed Batik.