PAGNE and WRAPPER the Wrapper, Called by the French Word Le
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69134-ECF-P_11-70.qxd 8/23/2004 2:02 PM Page 11 P PAGNE AND WRAPPER The wrapper, called by women wore three pagnes, layered in three different the French word le pagne in Francophone West African lengths. The three contrasting pagnes were made of hand- countries, is a cloth about 59 inches by 98 inches (150 woven, hand-dyed, and factory-printed fabrics. After cm by 250 cm). In its main use, it is wrapped around the World War II, the grand boubou, reaching almost to the hips and rolled over on itself at the waist to form a skirt. ankles, came into fashion for women. The pagne, almost Worn throughout West and Central Africa, it belongs to hidden, became less of a focal point. In the latter part of that large class of clothing that is not sewn but wrapped the twentieth century, elegant fashion demanded a sin- around the body. Found the world over, this class in- gle pagne of the same fabric as the boubou and head-tie, cludes the sarong, kain, kanga, sari, shuka, and toga. either richly dyed or in Holland wax. Although traditionally made of strip or broadloom hand- woven cloth, wrappers can also be made of hand-dyed or Differences in Use of the Pagne factory-printed cotton, as well as silk and rayon. In Nigeria, where the upper garments are usually short, and where weaving and dyeing are complex arts, the Gendered and Ethnic Styles wrapper has retained its strong visual focus in the over- In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, men wore all outfit. Luxurious, handwoven either on strip looms or wrappers, but by the twentieth century, they became, broad looms, intricately dyed with resist patterns, or in with a few notable exceptions, exclusively women’s wear. solid colors of rich silk, wrappers, called Iro, can be used Exceptions to this gender rule are certain ethnic groups, in many styles. For elegant occasions they can be worn including the Kalabari, of Nigeria. Here men’s formal with a short overblouse of rich fabric, often of lace. In dress includes an ankle-length wrapper worn with a long several ethnic groups, women dress for ceremonial occa- or short shirt, depending on one’s rank. The outfit is sions in a style called “up and down.” For this outfit, two topped with a bowler hat. matching cloths are wrapped around the body, one at the As women’s wear, the wrapper usually comes to the waist, the other under the arms. They can also be ankle, but is worn with different upper garments in Fran- wrapped at the waist, one knee length and one ankle cophone and Anglophone countries of West Africa. In length. In addition, urban women in Nigeria can adopt Senegal and the neighboring Francophone countries a style in which a handwoven wrapper is gathered around Mali, Guinea, and Benin, the pagne is worn with elegant the middle of the body over a Western dress. The out- long garments, the grand boubou or a long, loose dress fit is topped with a matching head-tie. called the ndoket. A head-tie finishes the outfit. While This overwrapper style differs from the deux pagnes these long garments hide most of the pagne, it is also worn in a way that epitomizes the differences in culture, na- with short garments: a loose blouse with puffed sleeves tionality, and age. The overwrapper is a form of elegance called the marinière, or a fitted top with a flounce at the worn by older married Nigerian women to demonstrate hip and puffed sleeves called the taille basse. One grace- their wealth and social position, and is tied loosely around ful style in these countries is the two wrap or deux pagnes. the waist to show off the expensive, heavy cloth, woven With a marinière and one pagne worn as a long skirt, the in stripes. The deux pagnes or two wrapper, by constrast, second, matching pagne is wrapped tightly around the is made of either dyed or factory-printed cotton cloth hips and tied. that is lightweight, more supple, and clings to the body. The style is worn in West and Central Africa by younger Historical Changes in Style women, whose body contours, graceful carriage, and In the early part of the twentieth century, when Sene- swaying gait show themselves to good advantage in the galese women wore their boubous hip or knee length, the tightly wrapped second pagne. pagne was a stronger visual focus for both the aesthetics and the symbolism of dress. Cloth was a major form of Cultural and Sexual Symbolism of Pagnes wealth, as well as a principal medium of artistic expres- In Senegal, a second, knee-length pagne, called in Wolof sion. In order to show their status and taste, Senegalese a bethio, is worn as an underskirt and seen only in intimate 11 69134-ECF-P_11-70.qxd 8/23/2004 2:02 PM Page 12 PAILLETTES meetings with a lover or husband. A focus of erotic fan- PAILLETTES. See Spangles. tasy and innuendo, the bethio plays a strong role in the art of seduction, for which Senegalese women are famous. It is also a product of women’s craft. Usually in solid col- PAISLEY The paisley pattern, though derived from ors, and often white, the bethio is made of various hand- Kashmir shawls and their European imitations, is a vari- worked fabrics. One such fabric is a factory silk, or more ant of an ancient and versatile design theme. The teardrop, often polyester, with hand-cut eyelet patterns and silver or elongated oval with one end tapering to a point, can be or gold embroidery. Another fabrication is made of per- traced back to Pharaonic, Chaldean, and Assyrian stone cale, hand embroidered with heavy thread in bright col- carvings, ancient Greek ceramics, and medieval Coptic, ors. For a third fabrication, women crochet the bethio in Central Asian, and European textiles. It features variously fine yarn. as lotus bud, tree-of-life, ivy or acanthus leaf, cone, palm But most important, the pagne or wrapper, as an end- frond or cypress, occasionally with the bent-over tip that lessly versatile piece of cloth, is symbolically fundamen- is the paisley’s defining characteristic. tal to human culture itself. In Wolof, the principal African As we know it today, however, the paisley emerged language of Senegal, the word for pagne is séru, which much later, in the shawl design of Kashmir, and perhaps means simply “cloth.” When a child is born, it is imme- contemporaneously in Persia, in the termeh, the woven diately wrapped in a pagne, and as an infant it is carried shawls of Meshad, Kerman, and Yazd. It developed out on its mother’s back in a pagne wrapped around her up- of the single, somewhat naturalistic bloom, a restrained per body. When a woman in Senegal marries, her friends and graceful form that in the seventeenth century became veil her head in a pagne before they take her on her jour- the favorite motif of Mughal courtly art. Applied to the ney to her husband’s house. When a person dies, he or shawl fabrics for which Kashmir and Persia were already she must be wrapped in a white percale pagne. A symbol famous, the single flower evolved into a bush, or a bou- of wealth, sexuality, birth, death, and marriage, the pagne quet of flowers, growing ever more elaborate and styl- is a rich focus of visual aesthetics and multiple meanings. ized. By about the second half of the eighteenth century, it assumed its characteristic shape, becoming, in myriad See also Africa, Sub-Saharan: History of Dress; Boubou. variations, the predominant motif of shawl design. In Kashmir it is usually called buta (Persian boteh, a shrub); BIBLIOGRAPHY and one version is still called shah-pasand, or “emperor’s Boilat, P.-David. Esquisses sénégalaises; physionomie du pays, peu- favorite,” indicating that royal patronage may have played plades, commerce, religions, passé et avenir, récits et légendes. some part in popularizing it. It was quickly incorporated Paris: P. Bertrand, 1853. in textile design elsewhere in India, where it is known as Eicher, Joanne Bubolz. Nigerian Handcrafted Textiles. Ile-Ife, kalgi or kalga (plume), badam (almond), or ambi (mango). Nigeria: University of Ife Press, 1976. By the end of the eighteenth century, imported Eicher, Joanne Bubolz, and Tonye V. Erekosima. “Why Do They Call It Kalabari? Cultural Authentication and the Kashmir shawls had become high fashion in Europe—as Demarcation of Ethnic Identity.” In Dress and Ethnicity: accessories to women’s attire rather than shoulder man- Change across Space and Time. Edited by Joanne B. Eicher. tles for men, Indian-style. British entrepreneurs started Oxford: Berg, 1995. experimenting with “imitation Indian shawls” in the last Heath, Deborah. “Fashion, Anti-Fashion, and Heteroglossia in decades of the century, first in Edinburgh, then in Nor- Urban Senegal.” American Ethnologist 19, no. 2 (1992): wich, copying or adapting the Kashmir designs. 19–33. As demand grew, Edinburgh shawl manufacturers Mustafa, Huda Nura. “Sartorial Ecumenes: African Styles in a started outsourcing work to Paisley which, as home to a Social and Economic Context.” In The Art of African Fash- long-established textile industry, had a pool of skilled ion. Edited by Els van der Plas and Marlous Willemson. weavers capable of drawing on the experience of Nor- Eritrea: Africa World Press (1998). wich, Edinburgh, and various shawl-manufacturing cen- Perani, Judith, and Norma H. Wolff. Cloth, Dress and Art Pa- ters in France, and could take advantage of technological tronage in Africa. New York: Berg, 1999.