BY SHARON SIBINDI
Paper Bag Africa in partnership with the British Council-Southern Africa Arts is calling for young Zimbabwean fashion designers to be part of I Wear My Culture — a research project aimed at exploring different tribal groups in Zimbabwe using fashion.
The project spearheaded by Gilmore Tee of Paper Bag Africa will see 10-16 young designers being selected and assigned to one of the 16 Zimbabwean tribal groups, to research on its practices, norms, fashion, arts, craft. The information will be used to create two contemporary looks inspired by what they would have individually gathered through primary research.
The project will run from now until November this year.
“I Wear My Culture aims to shine a light on not only the main groups, thus the Ndebele and Shona, but other tribal groups that make up our official languages,” said Gilmore Tee.
“We have 16 groups in Zimbabwe, the Ndau, Tonga, Xhosa, Kalanga and many more. We ought to find a way of creating awareness about them, not only to the rest of the world, but to ourselves.
“A lot of us do not even know that Zimbabwe has 16 official languages that come from our rich tribal groups. So this project will inform and educate through fashion. It’s also an opportunity for the designers themselves to be cross educated about a tribe that is not theirs, that’s quite exciting.”
He said throughout the project, the selected young designers will work hand in hand with facilitators from their select tribal group.
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“ They will also work with two historians to help them in their research and making the garments.
“Discussions with the historian, tribal facilitator and site visits, will be documented through audio-visual for future use,” Gilmore Tee added.
He said the different stages will be documented and put together as a fashion film which can be screened at different platforms or even be used for archiving by galleries and museums.
“The other exciting component of the project is that the garments made by the young designers will be then showcased at bigger platforms and also exhibited at local galleries.
“The hope is to create as much awareness on our beautiful, rich cultures using fashion as a tool. Interested designers can visit the Paper Bag Africa social media platforms to see the link for applying. Deadline for application is April 23,”said Gilmore Tee.
