This New Line Shows There’s More To West African Fashion Than Ankara And Kente Cloth (OkayAfrica)

An article for OkayAfrica on new Ghanaian fashion line Raffia, which is steadily dismantling stereotypes about Ghana's Northern Region. Find the original article here or read below. 

Far from the flashing lights of Accra, Northern Ghana might be the surprising new locus of a growing market for African fashion. While the Gold Coast is well-known for kente cloth, a richly patterned fabric that Ghanaian royals have sported for centuries, gonja cloth, its northern cousin, has yet to make a splash on international markets—until now.

Madonna Kendona-Sowah, founder and creative director of new fashion line Raffia, knows that there’s more to West African fashion than Ankara and kente cloth. Raffia produces high-quality clothing made from the woven material made in Northern Ghana.

Now in its second season, Raffia plans to dispel stereotypes that Ghanaians in the country’s wealthier, southern region have about their Northern countrymen. According to Kendona-Sowah, “Because of poverty, Northerners are considered to be less educated or enlightened. I think that perception is largely because it’s far away and most Ghanaians don’t travel widely throughout the country.”

The line’s name comes from the Raffia palm, which like Northern Ghana, is “rough and dry in its raw state but can be used to make beautiful things.”

Northern-born Ghanaians are vastly underrepresented in Ghana’s burgeoning high-street fashion scene led by designers like Christie Brown, Mina Evans, and Duaba Serwa. From the colonial days of gold mining to the present, the Akan people have dominated the country’s business elite. “Northern Ghanaians, even those who are well educated, will aspire instead to be civil servants. One of the things people told me when I decided to start Raffia was, ‘We’re not really entrepreneurs. That’s not what we do,'” Kendona-Sowah says.

Some raffia designs at the atelier opening in Accra.

Until now, shea butter is likely Northern Ghana’s most well-known export. Raffia hopes to add gonja cloth to that list. Made from cotton, gonja cloth is carefully dyed and hand-woven. Unlike its younger, southern cousin kente, which tends to feature bolder colors, gonja cloth traditionally uses more subdued tones like blue, brown, and black. In contrast to the wax print market, which is dominated by Dutch-owned Vlisco and Woodin and a growing flood of Chinese-made products, kente and gonja are still almost exclusively produced in Ghana. A growth in demand for these high-quality local materials could help the struggling Ghanaian textile industry.

Gonja cloth, also popularly known as batakari, can also be distinguished from kente cloth in another unique way—the gender of its weavers. Traditionally, men weave kente, but in Northern Ghana, Kendona-Sowah tells me, “You’ll see women weaving when they have time off.”

The budding designer works with an all-women cooperative in Zuarungu, Upper East, who produce her range of originally designed fabrics. As a social enterprise, Raffia focuses on professionalizing the women’s work and enhances their quality of life to enrich their families and communities.

Madonna sketching a bespoke design for a client.

Raffia’s beautiful range of skirts, blazers and crop tops might be shock to those familiar with gonja cloth, which is usually only found as a smock or kaba and slit. Kendona-Sowah attributes the limited range of traditional designs to the cloth’s standard use as a utilitarian piece of clothing. “My mother and aunties, who are very fashion-forward, never even used the fabric to make dresses. It was just skirts and tops,” she tells me.

“People haven’t seen the high fashion potential, but I’ve always loved the fabric as a child. When I decided to go into fashion, I wanted to do something high quality. Knowing about the fabric, how it’s woven with such attention to detail, but has always had a low profile made it a no-brainer when I decided to create the line.”

The line is the culmination of a long-held dream of being a fashion designer. After interning for a designer at 18, Kendona-Sowah deferred her aspirations in favor of a career in international development. When she turned 30, she decided it was finally time to pick up the sketchbook again.

In the two short years since Raffia launched, it’s seen remarkable success. In 2015, Kendona-Sowah was selected as one of 1000 Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Program (TEEP) 2015 entrepreneurs. The line is now stocked at London-based store Sapelle as well as Accra’s Elle Lokko, a picturesque concept store that recently opened in the bustling neighborhood of Osu.

With more retailers coming on board this year and a steadily growing clientele, Kendona-Sowah opened a Raffia atelier this March in Accra to give customers the space to meet her with her to discuss fabrics and bespoke designs. While Raffia does have an online shop, a full-scale shop in Accra is much further down the pipeline. “At this point, I want our team to concentrate on growing the brand, cultivating our customer base, and growing as creative—hence the atelier space,” she says.

As Raffia continues to grow, Kendona-Sowah hopes that the brand’s expansion helps the women at the foundation of the business. “To me, social enterprise is having the development of the community you work with in mind as you grow your business. There wouldn’t be Raffia without community development. As we grow, they will grow.”

Could She Be Somalia's Next President? Meet Fadumo Dayib (Ayiba)

I am deeply honored to have had the opportunity to interview Fadumo Dayib, Somalia's first female presidential candidate. In this interview, we talk Somali politics, Al-Shabaab, women's empowerment, and dreams for the future. Read the full Ayiba Magazine interview here and check out my favorite excerpt below.

I would not be who I am without my mother. My mother instilled in me from a very young age that you can do whatever you set your mind to. She would actually take me around so that I could visualize that future for myself. When I started interacting with my mother as a mature young woman was when I was able to negotiate with her about my education. Every Saturday, my mother and I would get in a taxi and she would ask me, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” I would say, “I want to work for the UN.” At the time, everyone wanted to be a Secretariat staff member at the UN complex in Gigiri. We would go there and she would say, “Do you see these gates, Fadumo? One day, you will walk through these gates. Keep that in your mind.” And I would respond, “no I can’t—I can’t even write.” She said, “Nonsense, you will. Keep this image in your mind.”

Then she’d say, “You’re working in the UN complex. Now, where do you want to live?” I’d respond, “I want to live in Spring Valley, where all the mzungu live.” We would go there and I’d point to the house in the compound where I wanted to live and she’d say, “keep it in your mind, and you will.” Then she’d say, “you work in the Gigiri complex and you live in this house, where do you want to shop?” I’d say, “Nakumatt.” We’d go there and she’d say, “ok, where next?” and I would say Sarit Center. We’d go there next.

Every Saturday, we would literally drive through my dreams and my vision for myself. You know, Akinyi, I walked through those gates in the UN complex, I lived in that compound in Spring Valley, and I shopped at Nakumatt and Sarit Center. I went everywhere my mother said I would go. Including to three universities in Finland and one in America. Everything she said to me, I’ve done.

Those people who doubt women are foolish. The world is running and functioning because of women. I am where I am today because of a very strong woman. All those men in high offices are where they are today because of strong women. It’s time for women to understand that we are the backbone of our continent and our countries. We need to formalize this leadership. We’ve carried these countries, these people on our backs for so long, and it’s time to have it recognized. Women are much stronger than many people would like us to believe or like us to know. People think my biggest challenge is my gender, but it’s also my biggest strength.

Is ‘An African City’ A True Portrayal Of The Urban African Woman? (OkayAfrica)

Check out this recent article I wrote for Okayafrica on feminism, sex and An African City. I discuss how the web series is re-shaping the image of the urban African women by focusing on the female gaze. You can find the full article below and the original here.

At An African City’s Season 2 launch event in Accra in January, there were audible gasps from the crowd at the frank, no-holds-barred dialogue, and revealing sex scenes. But there’s more to the web series than its shock value. The show is a space for urban African women to navigate evolving beliefs between tradition and contemporary life in a rapidly changing society.

HBO’s Sex and the City is An African City’s inevitable point of comparison for many viewers. A a decade after Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha bid us farewell, women still engage in spirited cocktail party conversations over which character they most identify with—the modern equivalent of a Myers-Briggs test.

Sex and the City was symbolic of contemporary debates about womanhood, and challenged the status quo. But the question remains—whose status quo? In arts and culture, the African woman is frequently represented as an object—a primeval Eve with scarifications and bare breasts, a breeding machine, or a sexualized spectacle akin to Hottentot Venus. In the news, she is a victim or a refugee. While these images are undoubtedly true, they are incomplete.

Until 2014’s arrival of An African City, the urban African woman lacked a pop cultural touchstone that could similarly create a new language to discuss their experiences from career to friendship to romance. Because of its web series format, An African City succeeds where Sex and the City fell short, combining unabashed conversations about womanhood with global representation.

While it fulfills a critical role in the cultural landscape, An African City is far from a panacea. Despite its mixture of satire and sincerity, some storylines verge on the absurd and the chemistry of the girl squad is occasionally lacking. Yet its refreshing voice and honesty sometimes matters more than its delivery.

Building on the narrative style of its American inspiration, An African City episodes begin with voice-overs by protagonist NanaYaa (played by the talented MaameYaa Boafo) and flits between scenes of the daily life of her circle of friends, including brazen and outspoken Sade, conservative and romantic Ngozi, pragmatic Zainab, and the ambitious and beautiful Makena.

Each woman plays an allegorical role in the continuum of modern African womanhood. Irreligious Sade unapologetically rejects her religious upbringing with her pastor father while Ngozi embraces the African church’s emphasis on sexual conservatism. Makena and Zainab struggle to navigate the difficulties of surviving in the sink-or-swim Accra business world without relying on men. Given this diversity of characters, it’s not surprising that the series immediately created buzz as women across the continent, especially in Africa’s sprawling urban megacities, found a little bit of themselves in each of the five women.

The show explores the tensions between second-wave and third-wave feminism. The former focused on independence and egalitarianism, and the latter embraced femininity as a tool of agency and empowerment. In exploring where these concepts of modern-day womanhood clash and overlap, An African City’s strength lays in its embrace of each woman’s lifestyle as a valid choice—its acknowledgment that the path to happiness in love and life is complex. Although they want different things and walk different paths, these women do not apologize for success or their sensuality. Ngozi wants marriage and commitment, while Zainab, focused on her career, could care less.

As the character that most navigates extremes, Sade (played by Nana Mensah), who often draws comparisons to her libertine American counterpart, Samantha, is a representation of the push and pull of the Africa of the past and present. A Harvard Business School graduate, Sade is the marketing manager of a prominent Accra-based bank, yet still enjoys coaxing gifts out of her male companions. Admittedly and unabashedly sexually confident, she evades the negative barbs of being labeled a whore because her self-love is not predicated on the attention of men.

On its face, this behavior might appear as a contradiction, but to Mensah, it’s a subversive act. “In many traditional African cultures, men and women have different kinds of capital—sexual and financial,” she tells Okayafrica.

“The woman is in peak possession of her sexual capital at a young age, when perhaps she doesn’t have access to vast resources while the older man is the one with assets. Sade recognizes this and decides to cash in her sexual capital into actual capital—almost like a retirement plan. I don’t agree with that choice personally, but I appreciate the logic behind these choices,” she says. Sade’s choice to embrace her sexuality is at once at capitalist pursuit, but also an act of liberation from her religious upbringing and societal expectations.

Showcasing sexuality on screen is nothing new, but portraying it through the female gaze still remains a novel concept in film and television. Laura Mulvey’s pioneering 1973 essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” introduced new feminist discourse into film studies in its psychoanalytic analysis of how women are portrayed as passive subjects of the male gaze in the Western world.

Mensah agrees with this view, and thinks that is still particularly relevant in Africa’s nascent film and television industry. “A lot of times, sexuality is not shown at all or it’s a 1960s Hollywood portrayal where you see the lead-up and nothing else. Whether it’s in the U.S. or in Nigeria, film and television tends to show sexuality through the male gaze. The actress is there for the visual consumption of male viewers, male directors, male writers, and male co-stars. Now you have directors and filmmakers like Nicole Amarteifo, who directs An African City, and Leila Djansi, who are showcasing sexuality from a female perspective and showing female pleasure,” she tells us.

In the eyes of Maame Adjei, who plays Zainab and serves as one of the show’s producers, there are “myriad of reasons Africans tend to shy away from the conversation of sex… [but] the fact is young African women have sex.” She says, “sex is a human trait and a uniting factor and it’s a great way of telling nuanced stories because no matter who you are or where you’re from you understand the concept and complexities of sexuality.”

While some might claim MTV’s Shuga as the first television show to grapple with tough questions about the evolving nature of sexuality in Africa’s metropolises, Varyanne Sika, founder of The Wide Margin, an online journal of African feminist thought, finds that An African City is distinct from Shuga because it refrains from moralizing the protagonists’ sexuality.

“I created the show to highlight women who own their sexuality and sensuality—even if one of the characters, Ngozi, refrains from sex she is still owning her sexuality,” Amarteifo tells us. “And I wanted a show like this because for centuries women have been told that sex is not for them. Women have been sex-shamed for far too long. Sometimes men sex-shaming women, sometimes women sex-shaming other women. My show, itself, is a message: we will not be sex-shamed.”

Despite accolades and widespread media coverage for its refreshingly progressive take on African sexuality, An African City, like its American inspiration, has garnered some criticism for its focus on the lives of middle and upper class women. According to Sika, “urban life is reshaping the perception of African femininity along the lines of the usual rural and urban differences… affording some of those living in cities many opportunities for social, economic and cultural self-advancement which they otherwise wouldn’t have.”

While black women often speak of the importance of intersectionality, interpretations frequently center on race and gender, rather than third critical paradigm of class. In One Dimensional Woman, feminist scholar Nina Power writes, “if pop culture’s portrayal of womankind were to be believed, contemporary female achievement would culminate in the ownership of expensive handbags, a vibrator, a job, a flat and a man.”

With its exclusive focus on an elite, educated group of Ghanaian women, An African City shies away from broad representations of African women in its efforts to dismantle “the single story.” But in this attempt, does it create a single story of its own? In the same way that critics charged Lena Dunham’s Girls for lacking racial diversity and showcasing topics only relevant to a narrow slice of American life, An African City could similarly be dismissed as a narrow, elite feminist fantasy.

Even those in positions of privilege across the continent need only step outside their door to be robbed of the illusion of their palatial oasis. In Accra, you can step outside a mega-mansion only to be confronted with the stench of an overflowing gutter or a street riddled with potholes. These realities directly conflict with the glamorous, fanciful life that An African City attempts to show.

The parallel society of lavish luxury that persists aside the hellish realities of slums like Sodom and Gomorrah speaks to the growing income inequality in countries like Ghana. As we indulge in this bourgeois tableau of urban African life, we risk forgetting that independence of Nana Yaa, Ngozi, Zainab, Makena, and Sade is a rare privilege in a world in which African women experience fear more than freedom. Indulging in a guilty pleasure of An African City should not obscure the real problems impeding African women’s liberation.

There’s A New App Changing The Natural Hair Industry For African Women (OkayAfrica)

Check out this recent article I wrote for Okayafrica about new app Tress, which hopes to disrupt Africa's billion-dollar haircare industry. You can find the full article below and the original here. 

By now it’s no secret: black hair is big business. Whether it’s New York, Paris or Lagos, black women like to experiment with their hair, and they’re willing to spend on it.

Documentaries such as Chris Rock’s critically acclaimed Good Hair explored the central role hair plays in the black community. In the United States, where the black hair industry is projected to reach $761 million by 2017, black women spend nine timesmore on hair than other racial demographics.

Euromonitor International estimates that approximately $1.1 billion of shampoos, relaxers and hair lotions were sold across South Africa, Nigeria and Cameroon in 2013. The market research firm predicts that liquid hair care market might grow as much as 5 percent by 2018 in Nigeria and Cameroon. And these impressive figures don’t even include the hugely lucrative and diverse market of hair extensions that includes everything from weaves to wigs of every texture, size and color.

As the continent’s hair market grows, Priscilla Hazel, Esther Olatunde and Cassandra Sarfo, three female software entrepreneurs from Ghana and Nigeria, are here to help African women cash in. Their new app, Tress, is a mobile app that helps black women around the world find hair inspiration, and high quality stylists and products.

The trio met at the award-winning Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology. Nestled in the popular Accra neighborhood East Legon, the school selects top graduates from across Africa every year to participate in a fully sponsored one-year, full-time, intensive educational program. In the seven years since MEST launched in Ghana, the school has successfully incubated Kudobuzz and meQasa, which have raised a combined $650,000 in the last year. Tress is the latest jewel in MEST’s line of promising startups.

The last year has been a whirlwind for team Tress. Since coming up with the concept last June, the three co-founders have dived headfirst into business and software development. Following a pilot run in Ghana last December, Tress officially launched at Social Media Week Lagos in February.

As Africa’s largest beauty market, Nigeria is one of Tress’ first two target communities. After building its network of users and salons in West Africa, Tress hopes to expand to other rapidly growing economies like Kenya and South Africa.

I catch Tress CEO Hazel fresh off of her trip to Lagos, where she spoke on a panel about technology’s role in shaping the beauty industry.

Addressing why she, Olatunde and Sarfo decided to launch an haircare app, Hazel speaks of the frustrations of trying to find accurate information about how to achieve certain hairstyles and where to find a high quality stylist.

“One of the greatest aspects of black hair is its versatility—you can do anything to it, so my friends and I, like many black women, love experimenting with our hair,” she tells me. “But we got frustrated with the lack of information. Where to go, what hair to use, what styling technique. Tress makes that information more accessible.”

When we speak, I feel like Hazel is reading my mind. Just a few days before, I lament my struggle to find someone who can do crochet braids in Accra. As I log into Tress, I locate a stylist in a matter of minutes, finding pictures of her previous work as well as a location and a number. The platform feels like a mash-up of Instagram in look and feel, and Pinterest in sheer, encyclopedic variety.

As I flip through the profiles of users and stylists, I also note with surprise the high number of natural hairstyles. Despite being majority-black, it often feels that natural hair in Accra is the exception rather than the norm. For years, in Africa’s major cities, hair extensions have been seen as a mark of status among the nouveau riche that have internalized Western beauty standards. But increasingly, like many other places in the world, the natural hair movement has started to gain momentum. On the Tress platform, the diversity in hairstyles is both astounding and refreshing.

While I find the app brilliant and straightforward, one thing isn’t immediately clear — just how does Tress plan to make money? According to Priscilla, the team plans to adopt the model of other social media giants like Instagram and Snapchat through sponsored and promoted ads after it builds a sizeable community of users.

“Down the road, we’re considering e-commerce,” she says. “We know that companies would love the opportunity to specifically target hundreds of thousands of women, and through Tress, women will learn which products they can use to achieve certain looks. But beyond companies, there are a lot of opportunities for salons–this platform could eventually help them schedule appointments and help increase their visibility.”

With the app just in its first version and yet to release on iOS, there’s more to come. Future versions will include the capability to feature by location and hair type as well as opportunities to connect with other users and form mini-communities for those with transitioning hair and more.

I, for one, can’t wait.

You can download Tress on the Google Play store today.

Re-Imagining Everyday #LITTLELUXURYMOMENTS with Imperial Leather

A sneak peek at Imperial Leather's new product range 

Rebranding is an area where many a company has tried and failed. It’s not about just putting a new logo on a product and calling it a day — it’s about growing and expanding your customer base while still maintaining your core values. Think J.Lo reminding us she’s always Jenny from the Block. Or, in the case of this post, Imperial Leather, manufactured by UK-based PZ Cussons.

Growing up, my grandparents always loved Imperial Leather soaps. While the brand invoked some childhood nostalgia, I didn’t necessarily think of it as a product that I would use myself. Well-acquainted with Imperial Leather's original bar soaps, I thought of it as a traditional, old world brand. So when Imperial Leather got in touch with me and a few of my fellow Accra bloggers (Naa Oyoo Quartey, Jemila Abdulai of Circumspecte, model Laurie Frempong, and Adwoa Asiedu of Love, Adjpants) to discuss how we could partner, I was surprised. What, I thought, could an old-school brand of my grandparents' era possibly want to do with a millennial like me — especially someone like me, who is a student of culture and politics, rather than a traditional lifestyle blogger? 

When Stephen Boadi, Head of Digital Marketing, introduced me to Imperial Leather's new range of personal care products, I was astounded by the variety of the new line. Yes, the old classic bar soaps on my grandparents' age remain, but they’ve been complimented by a wide variety of contemporary scents like “Softly Softly” (hints of rose) and “Japanese Spa” (my personal favorite, with its beautiful jasmine fragrance and moisturizing rice milk formula). As I shared some of the other parts of the new improved line, which features body washes, lotions, bar soaps, and deodorants, with friends and families, I heard nothing but positive reviews. Those familiar with their classic bar soap commented on the improved fragrance and lather. With Imperial Leather’s new range, there is something for men and women, young and old. With the new look and feel of the products, these aren’t things you leave languishing at the back of your medicine cabinet — especially their amazing Japanese Spa range — but go-to products for the everyday.

Part of understanding culture and politics and how they shape our evolving global landscape is experiencing cultural shifts. So it was interesting for me to learn more about how Imperial Leather has evolved since its beginning in 1798. As the story goes, a Russian nobleman called Count Orlof commissioned a brand of perfume called 'Eau de Cologne Imperiale Russe' from Bayleys of Bond Street in London. At the time, Russian leather was a high-quality leather with a distinct aroma exported widely from Russia. In 1921, Cussons Sons & Co acquired Bayley and began to use the perfume in a line of scented bath products. Originally called 'Imperiale Russian Leather,' the brand was later renamed Imperial Leather. 

While Imperial Leather has traditionally been priced at figures friendly to most people’s pockets, the idea of luxury is in their backbone. With their latest re-launch, the Imperial Leather Ghana team chose to center their marketing campaign around the idea of #LittleLuxuryMoments — making luxury for the everyday. As a firm believer in the idea that everybody should adhere by Donna of Parks and Recreation fame's informal motto "treat yo'self," Imperial Leather's rebranding made me think deeply about the meaning of "luxury."

Thanks Team Imperial Leather and PZ Cussons for inviting me to join in on the fun at your launch event! 

When you think of the word “luxury” what images come to mind? Ten years ago, it might have been the excess of the MTV and VH1 reality shows of the 2000s era—guilty pleasures like Cribs or The Fabulous Life. For others, it might be the couture houses that rule the runway – Balmain or Dior; however, increasingly, luxury has a different luster.

What if we thought of luxury as self-care? As investing in the everyday icing on the cake. Old-school luxury items like a pair of Louboutins or a Rolls Royce may be prohibitively expensive, but the “new school” of luxury offers a high-quality, stylish experience at a lower price point. Self-care isn’t the domain of the wealthy, but something that can be democratized for the everyday.

On a small fellowship budget in the dumsor days of Ghana, I can tell you personally that a little luxury goes a long way. 

Read my previous column on supporting African luxury markets.

The Fantasy Coffins of Ghana (Slate)

I wrote a piece for online travel magazine Roads and Kingdom's Breakfast section a few weeks ago. Today, I'm sharing a piece I wrote as a foreign correspondent for their weekly global dispatch, co-produced with Slate, on the unique Ga tradition of "fantasy coffins." 

If that term intrigues you, read more via the Roads and Kingdoms website or on the Slate website.

Take a peek at an excerpt below: 

I almost miss the workshop on a busy coastal road in the Ghanaian capital. The faded sign reading Kane Kwei Coffins in block letters sits prominently outside a small structure set between a three-story supermarket and a few ramshackle buildings. Children run around coffins of all shapes and colors: a chili pepper, a cat, a scorpion.

The finished coffins are smooth to the touch, painted in vibrant shades that shine despite the seasonal Harmattan dust coating every surface. Inside the workshop, a group of young apprentices saw grooves into a block of wood that will become a coffin in the shape of a cocoa pod. Founded in the 1950s by Seth Kane Kwei, this is thought to be the oldest coffin shop specializing in abebuu adekai: proverb boxes...