African Wax Fabrics

My first proper boyfriend lived in Ghana for a year.  In our emails back and forth he would tell me about the food, the nightlife and the time he drunkenly passed out at a party at the Irish Consulate in Accra. 

Reading back over his emails from five years ago, it's clear that Ghana is an incredible country with Everest-type highs and supertrough lows.  Floods, typhoid and the odd Internet cafe going on fire are recurring motifs in the emails.  But then again, so are friendly, welcoming people, sporting tradition and the merits of river boiled kenki.

He never told me about the fabric though.



Wax fabric is predominantly made in Ghana and is responsible for some of the trippiest, brightest, graphic prints available in the world today.  The prints can be abstract, but are usually full of signs and symbols denoting a persons social status, political affiliations or general likes.

African art has a tendency towards the literal and these prints follow on from that.  With the popularisation of wax printing, more and more prints are devoted to technology and commerce.  You can buy Pop Art-ish yards of fabrics stamped with lipsticks, batteries, car mufflers, chickens and irons.



I love the pure, flat joy of these prints.  It's only a matter of time before a label like Proenza Schouler or Erdem picks these brights up and works them into a Spring/Summer collection (fingers crossed). 

There are already Western designers that work with these fabrics, but I'm yet to see a top or dress that justifies the fabric and brings out the best in it.  Is it just me or is a lot of this clothing, I don't know, a little bit... patronising?  Or self-congratulatory?  People need to get out of the mindset that Africa is synonymous with charity - then we'll stop treating their indigenous goods like another person's cast-offs and give it the shape and beauty these prints deserve.

To see more, go to the African Fabric Flickr pool

Photos 1-4 from here.  Photos 5-8 from here.

Fi Lo (the dj, not the pastry)

This is Fiona. She's one smart lady. Fiona is one of those multi-tasking legends that intimidates me by working two jobs, formulating sets, booking holidays and being a great mother in the time that it would normally take me to make and eat a piece of toast.  Quickly.  She's a go-getter, There is no other word.

I took a few photos of Fiona, who gigs under the name of DJ Fi Lo before one of her sets a few weeks ago. I'm only getting around to doing it now, which just goes to show that if I was anything like Fiona I'd have them up by now. Oh well.



Rocking a McQueen-esque dress.  Not the slightly scary screens in the top right corner.  There were silhouettes of naked ladies bouncing around like a Bond film opening sequence on acid, which hypnotised (and occasionally scared) me to no end...

The set was a mix of mash-ups, house and chart, and was funky as fuck (ahem).  Midway through the night a girl came in wearing a dress made entirely of playing cards.  I really wish I'd saved the picture now.  Even her little top hat was made out of cards.  Oh well.  Another time maybe...

If the shoe fits...

This is one of my favourite posts from the old blog...
If you're the kind of person who feels sick at the sight of a person's bare feet (and there's more of them than you'd think) perhaps you shouldn't look any further.


I was promised a new pair of shoes. What I got was this... It took my best friend A more than an hour to painstakingly draw in all the aspects of an Adidas Predator (am I right?) soccer boot on my feet. Next time a pair of Ann D's I think. It's the only way I'll get my hands on a pair.

I love my new boots so much - I might just keep them. Below are some detail shots. Apologies for the poor quality. The photos were taken with my awful camera phone and the lighting was a shaky bedside lamp, resulting in overly-dramatic shadows.





My favourite part is the stud detail (though that was the tickliest to have done).