Ankara in da Mixx...

It’s not a new trend to see fashion designers going nuts with Ankara these days, I call West African designers avatars and they sure can bend materials with some crazy precision, especially the Ankara. But how did the exodus from those boring looking “iro-and-bubas” and those very distracting “geles” that look like they want to morph into the cast of ‘scary movies 2’, to today’s Ankara skirt suits and hand bags, how did it start? Just as I thought, you don’t.

Anyway, Ankara was invented in Europe and top quality ones are produced in Austria, The Netherlands and India, so it is not appropriately a local attire considering that contact with the west is less than a thousand years old. Dutch Wax from Holland, now known as Ankara, only became known as “Ankara” when the Turks began to produce cheaper versions of this material, then West Africa caught the bug. The Ankara then became the in thing, you know, like it was the “blackberry” of the fabric world, the skinny denim pants of the fabric world, the…the!!…never mind the crescendo, am sure you understand what I mean; the in thing… good.

Due to the popularity of the light-weight and colorful nature of the Ankara fabric, local manufacturers decided to key into the Ankara vision. Then competition and constant craving for the fabric, particularly along the West African coast forced the local production to accelerate. But as always, unfair trading and smuggling by individuals as well as companies forced the suffocation of local production. Ankara was then relegated to the lower divisions, division ‘wardrobe bottom’ while other materials especially the lace material took its place in the fabric premier league. It was the fabric for the poor; it was dresses made with Ankara and its sister like ‘adire’ that people wore to lowly parties. It was also the fabric reserved for cultural festivities that did not come near a red carpet event. It was the fabric that people felt were too flowery, too busy, sometimes too colorful and not at all glamorous. If anything, it was considered too local to be reckoned with.
 Thanks to the timely intervention of our ‘avatars’, fashion designers like Tiffany Amber, MoMo, Lunar e.t.c, who bent the material back into the lime light.

Ankara was the western rival to the ‘adire’ cloth but because the dye was faster and did not stain as much, the locals dumped their own fabric; their first love, in favor of the more colorful version from Europe, causing the ‘Adire’ a heart break she has not fully recovered from. The Ankara gradually evolved into a regular party wear. From being used as ‘aso ebi’ to ‘aso oku’’. These places happen to be the spots where fashion ideas spread mostly, as everybody is dressed for competition, just plain show off. They almost caused trouble by making laws like “o wo ankara o je semo” (you are not wearing an Ankara, you don’t get to eat semo), thank God it was not enforced or I would have filled a lawsuit against every caterer and event planner in Nigeria to court.

One very amazing thing about the Ankara is its versatility, it can be formed to all sorts of designs, and African designers are creatively exploiting these great attribute. This age, you rarely see the normal iro and buba made from Ankara anymore, designer have being able to create sassy designs that can be worm anywhere from these ones humble material. Now you see evening dresses made from Ankara, Ankara wedding gown, Ankara jackets and lots of them, am sure somebody is probably working on Ankara lingerie, Ankara school uniforms, Ankara diapers(like we didn’t have those before) and who knows, maybe Ankara contact lenses, which would be pretty good, it’ll make the user understand what Coldplay meant by seeing ‘life in Technicolor’.

We’ve being able to amazingly develop the Ankara from a material worn by local people with only one boring design, to an international material that can be made to several designs. West African fashion designers are so creative they scare me. Some of their works look only fit to be worn as Halloween costumes, while some should be on cover of every fashion magazine; I guess that’s what happens when creativity meets versatility.
Beautiful designs made from Ankara material are featured on almost every runaway show that has a mix of black designers. The quality of the material and the supercharged creativity fused into each design is petrifying.

The hard work of our designer over the years is now very visible in each design. With designs that show pure creativity and versatility, they have not only carved a niche for the Ankara in the fashion industry, they have chiseled out another Mount Rushmore with a big face of Ankara, creating a perfect fusion of western/modern designs with the fabric.
It’s refreshing to see the designs being created, but the refreshment stops for me when they decide to enforce the no Ankara no semo law, besides I could use some Ankara myself, maybe I should ask Denrele Edun for some design ideas come Halloween next year.

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