In Sengal every Friday is fashion week. Senegalese men and women are exquisitely elegant and love to wear traditional clothes in rich, buttery soft embroidered fabrics, lace and ruffles everywhere for women, 15 sq. meters caftans and headscarves nonchalantly and yet perfectly wrapped.
On Friday, men pray together at the mosque before lunch and you can see them hurry up, at the call of the muezzin, in their boubous (pants+tunic traditional outfit) with their prayer carpet under their arm. Someone also wears the fez, the hat of the great occasions.
On Friday, women get to work wearing Haute Couture kind of dresses, with puffed sleeves and pearl trains (dresses that seem to me to require the care of a theatre costume), frills and headscarves aplenty.
At every religious holiday (two main ones per year) there’s no presents exchange but new dresses for every member of the family. One of the most appreciated gift over the year are pieces of fabric to make a new dress, for women and men alike.
One of the most widespread jobs is the taylor, there’s one or more for each block and before the holidays they get no sleep at all, trying to deliver all the orders. And often miss the deadline.
Traditional dressed doesn’t mean Grandma’s dresses: patterns and trends are revisited every year.
Traditional dresses doesn’t mean buttoned up particularly modest: open shoulders and deep necklines are widespread.
The more covering dresses usually do not serve the purpose of covering up the body but rather of showing that you have enough money to afford to buy lots of meters of fancy and expensive fabric; same goes for women’s head covers: a couple of meters wrapped around the head with a bow standing tall.
On a Friday afternoon it is not unusual to spot women wearing what in western culture is considered an evening gown, with lace and rhinestones, sparking fabrics and skirts so tight, it is hard to walk.
The younger kids also love to dress up and revisit the classics: irregular necklines, see-through, geometric embroidery instead of arabesques, silky fabrics with traditional patterns. My stepdaughter is eighteen and the other days showed me a hat she would love to have: a mix of silk and taffeta, the size of a Pluto ring.
To go see friends and family wearing your best outfit is still of the outmost importance in Senegalese culture.
On religious holidays, at night, there is a bustle of kids and grown up showing up like at a beauty pageant, with jewels and perfumes, knowing all too well that they are judging and being judged.
All the new designers, no matter how exposed they are to the international fashion trends, are revisiting the traditions (you can find plenty on Instagram). They keep a strong link with local fabrics and most of all patterns: boubous, long and wide dresses, high waste for women (a total must, that is known here, oddly enough, as taille basse, low waist in French).
The Senegalese is open in general, they swear by the motto live and let live, but when they choose to be seen they leave nothing to chance and almost nothing to the West.
My daughter is not three yet and already has a mini arsenal of masterpieces of sartorial craftsmanship, holiday presents from her paternal aunties. She adores them, being them the typical princess-from-a-fairy-tale kind of dress with puffy sleeves, Sangallo lace, fancy and sparky fabrics. She often insists to wear them for dinner, after her bath, and it seems to me I am dining with Queen Mairie Antoinette.