Contemporary African Fashion

12. Dressing Somali (Some Assembly Required)

H e a t h e r M a r i e Ak o u Dressing Somali (Some Assembly Required) 2Parking outside of the Somali malls in Minneapolis–St. Paul is always a challenge. By the afternoon clusters of men are talking outside on the sidewalks as customers and the people who run the shops—mostly women and their teenage sons and daughters—filter in and out of the building. The men are wearing clothes that would look appropriate on almost any street in America—pants, button-down shirts, sweaters, and sometimes a heavy coat, depending on how cold it is that day in Minnesota. A few of the younger men are wearing the kind of baggy pants, athletic shoes, and jerseys that might make you think they were African Americans if you didn’t hear them speaking Somali. Some older men, whose orange beards have been dyed with henna, are obviously not from here. Insidethemall,visitorsaregreetedwithariotofcolors.Thehallwaysarenearly blocked with racks of skirts and scarves, rolled-up rugs, and ready-made clothing for both children and adults, which hangs from every available wall space (Figure 12.1). The shops are crammed with what seems like random merchandise—sets of tea pots and tiny glasses, bedspreads in plastic bags, prayer clocks in the shape of Heather Marie Akou 192 theKaaba,androwsuponrowsofcolorfulfabrics. It can be difficult to tell where one shop ends and the next begins; none of the prices are marked, so everything is open to negotiation. The teenage boys who work for their mothers are dressed like the men outside, but the girls and women are all wearing head scarves. The older women are always dressed very modestly in long, flowing head scarves and dresses that cover everything but the hands and faces of their ample bodies. Some of the younger women wear skirts and denim jackets that fit more closely. Their head scarves match the colors of their long but fashionable skirts and are neatly held in place with plastic pins shaped like hearts and butterflies. Cell phones ring continuously to keep friends and family members in touch. If a visitor starts to ask questions, he or she will find that there is much more merchandise stacked on the shelves and packed into crevices —shash and khimar (head scarves) in every imaginable color, tubes of henna paste, bits of frankincense in metal canisters (complete with electric incense burners), bottles of alcohol-free perfume, and plastic sandals from China. Most of the products are from somewhere else; places as far away as Indonesia, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates (Figure 12.2). Scholars in cultural studies often use the term bricolage to describe how members of subcultures take objects from different times and places and recombine them into new ensembles. This postmodern concept has actually been part of Somali culture for much longer. Outsiders have always noted that almost everything Somalis wear comes from someone or somewhere else—the cloth, the jewelry, even the weapons that nomads carry. Over the centuries, Somalis have become masters at borrowing ideas and objects. Overflowing merchandise at the Somali malls is not truly random but reflects the array of times, places, and cultures from which Somalis are drawing as they construct unique ways of dressing Somali in Minnesota (Figure 12.3). Even so, this bricolage Figure 12.1. Interior hallway of a “Somali mall” in Minneapolis. July 2009. Photograph by Heather Marie Akou. Figure 12.2. Rows of knockoff handbags (imitating Coach and Fendi) paired with fancy materials for dirac and garbasaar. July 2009. Photograph by Heather Marie Akou. Figure 12.3. Interior of a Somaliowned shop in Minneapolis. The colorful sets of cloth along the walls are for dirac, garbasaar, and gorgorad. Hanging from the ceiling is a row of colorful, European-style dresses (imported from China) to be worn by little girls at celebrations such as weddings and Eid. July 2009. Photograph by Heather Marie Akou. Heather Marie Akou 194 is not a free-for-all; individual ideas about what is interesting or right to wear are converging and diverging into a series of different but distinct visions. Vision #1: The Traditional Somali For Somalis, the late 1800s were a time of unsurpassed cultural and financial wealth. Somalis traded livestock, leather, and sesame seeds, as well as ostrich feathers, ivory, frankincense, and even slaves to the outside world. In exchange, they received cotton and silk cloth from India, Great Britain...