Contemporary African Fashion

10. La Sape Exposed! High Fashion among Lower-Class Congolese Youth: From Colonial Modernity to Global Cosmopolitanism

D i d i e r G o n d o l a La Sape Exposed! High Fashion among Lower-Class Congolese Youth From Colonial Modernity to Global Cosmopolitanism In a 1989 interview published in the French magazine Afrique Élite, Congolese dandy Djo Balard candidly expounded his view that fashion matters: “If you are well dressed, all doors are open to you. . . . Africans who live here [in Europe] pay attention to what they wear. If they don’t have anything to wear, they prefer not to return home for vacation. There are people who haven’t gone back for fifteen years! In 1982, I had a friend who spent two months down there; he couldn’t go out during the day because he only had imitation clothes and shoes, not griffes [designer labels].” Djo Balard, who lived in Paris as an immigrant of modest means, was famous for his elaborate wardrobe that was said to be replete with the most expensive designer suits and for a collection of stylish shoes that could be rivaled only by that of Imelda Marcos! His search for refinement, elegance, and carefully matched apparel was reminiscent of George (Beau) Brummell, the famous nineteenth -century English dandy and socialite. It also stood out against the lackluster dressing habits of the French lower and middle classes. In the late 1970s, as unprecedented numbers of young African immigrants flocked to France, dandies from the central African nation of Congo became a Didier Gondola 158 fixture on the Parisian scene. One could easily spot them strolling down the boulevards of the famed metropolis or seated at cafés decked out in expensive and flamboyant attire. This fashion phenomenon has been labeled La SAPE, which first stood for Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes (Society for Ambiancers and Persons of Elegance) and is now commonly used without reference to this fictitious society. The word sape (dress) and its corresponding intransitive verb se saper (to dress fashionably) first appeared in the French vocabulary in 1926 to capture the fashion energy that characterized the Parisian socialites of the Roaring Twenties. It may have derived from the word sapa, which is commonly used in Provençal (a southern French dialect) for “adornment” or “to adorn.” Although the word sape is still used exclusively to refer to the fashion exuberance of this section of Congolese youth, other trendy terms have labeled its adepts. They were first known as sapeurs, then Parisiens, and most recently they have dubbed themselves cracks or playboys. However, for the purpose of this chapter, I use sapeurs to refer to these youths, as this remains the common epithet that has historically defined them. Fashion and Colonial Modernity La sape dates back to the first years of the colonial encounter as incipient stereotypes depicting Africans as uncivilized and uncouth gained currency in Europe. To the French, their mission civilisatrice (civilizing mission) was predicated on redeeming not only the “primitive minds” but also the “primitive bodies” of the “naked people.” Early accounts of the first missionary travels made by French explorers invariably mention the use of European secondhand clothes as a bargaining item in the hands of zealous missionaries and explorers as they strove to cajole African chiefs and secure their loyalty. In 1885, for instance, France’s trailblazing explorer Savorgnan de Brazza laid out his general rule concerning gifts to African chiefs, observing that it was necessary to give chiefs rare items that few people could procure themselves. “It is imperative ,” he wrote, “to lavish them always with novelties: old clothes, especially withbrightcolors,[military]garmentswithstripes,hats,helmets,longcavalrysabers . . . . [Congolese] chiefs rarely venture outside of their compounds but they witness the parade of [Black] troops in European attire. It is exceedingly humiliat- La Sape Exposed! 159 ingtothemnottobeabletosportahat,ashirtandafrockcoat.”Evidencesuggests that in the early colonial period of the French Congo, as Brazzaville emerged as the most favored residential area for whites and the seat of colonial government, secondhand clothes rather than monetary wages were routinely used by European colonists to compensate their houseboys, who by the end of the nineteenth century were the first Africans to embrace European modernity. As early as 1910, la sape was in full bloom in Brazzaville as several observers have complainingly noted. In 1913, French Baron Johan De Witte demurs at what he thought was “overdressing” among the Brazzaville locals: “on Sunday, those that have several pairs of pants, several cardigans, put these...