Women shop for traditional chitenge clothing.
LUSAKA, ZAMBIA – When Veronica Sampa was growing up, she dreamed of establishing a career in marketing. But now, in her late 20s, she has realized that her passion is fashion.
Sampa is one of the leading fashion designers in Zambia. She has a company that designs and sells items from clothing to jewelry. She has participated in various regional and international exhibitions, and her face can be seen on posters around Lusaka, the capital.
She also aims to use her knowledge and experience in the fashion industry to empower women. She holds workshops for women to train them in fashion designing.
She held one workshop in September during Zambia’s Month of the Woman Entrepreneur in Kayama, a compound of Lusaka. Of medium height and fairly dark in complexion, she stands in front of a group of women wearing a scarf on her head and a green chitenge dress, a long garment that symbolizes a conservative African woman.
She teaches the women about the importance of business and how a woman can progress in the fashion industry on her own. She translates some of the English words written on the board in the front of the room to the local language for some women who are unfamiliar with them.
Sampa, who has been in the fashion industry for a decade, says fashion is diverse here. She says that so far, Zambians have no specific fashion they can call their own, except for the traditional clothing worn during cultural ceremonies.
“I have never seen people wearing [clothes] that can be said as Zambian,” she says.
She says there is a need to promote as well as enhance traditional clothes that people wear at ceremonies here in order to assert and preserve Zambians’ identity.
Zambians debate whether the country has any style to call its own. But many agree that modesty is one stamp of identity when it comes to Zambian fashion and decry the more revealing clothing that many youths wear, which they blame on outside influence. Some women here have taken it upon themselves to discourage promiscuous clothing and ask fashion designers to promote a more local and conservative style.
Traditional clothing for women in Zambia is long, loose and conservative. A common outfit is the chitenge suit – a traditional shirt and skirt, which is also called a wrapper, that are made from chitenge, a type of material.
Annette Tembo, 18, works as a cashier at a boutique in a newly opened shopping complex in a residential area. She agrees with Sampa that Zambian fashion lacks originality.
“I do not think we have a specific way of dressing in Zambia because most of the people here do not want to initiate their own way of dressing and clothing,” she says.
But others disagree.
Josephine Mukuka, 45, is an elementary teacher at a community school. Unlike Sampa and Tembo, she says that Zambia has its own fashion that identifies the clothing as uniquely Zambian.
“A Zambian can be identified as one when putting on a long dress, not too tight clothing, and of course a chitenge suit or wrapper,” she says.
Vigiriah Kapya, 18, agrees. Putting on a pair of tight trousers, she says that Zambians do have their own fashion associated with their culture. She says this includes wrappers and chitenge suits.
Mukuka says that another trademark of Zambian clothing is that it is conservative.
“Our fashion is identified through decency dressing,” she says as she puts on a long and loose chitenge suit as an example. “A long skirt or loose trouser is what is known as decency.”
But Mukuka says that these days, young people dress immodestly. She says that although they may call her clothing old-fashioned, the way that girls expose their stomachs and backs and boys wear pants that sag is inappropriate.
“Television and certain movies has contributed to the indecency way of dressing among our youths,” she says. “Our youths and some elderly citizens have been spoiled due to Western culture.”
She says society needs to curb this influence.
“All this need to change to redeem our way of decency dressing,” she says. “Our skin and beliefs are different from the Western, and so it’s important that we as old people educate our young ones on dressing.”
Tembo also attributes the rise of indecent clothing among youth to the influence of other cultures.
“There is too much of copying,” Tembo says. “Hence, people end up putting on indecency clothing.”
Kapya says there is a need to encourage Zambians, and especially young people here, to dress more modestly. She says they shouldn’t expose their backs or their thighs.
Charity Sakala, 25, works as a saleswoman at a local boutique. She says that Zambia is a Christian nation, but that new fashion trends don’t reflect this.
“Our dressing does not symbolize our nation as a Christian nation,” she says.
She says that fashion is evolving here, but that indecency is not a fashionable trend.
“Fashion of the past has moved to a different stage, but this does not mean people should put on indecency clothing,” Sakala says. “A lot of people are walking naked in the name of modern fashion, exposing most parts of their bodies. [It] seems as if our nation is not a Christian sector. This is something uncalled for.”
Sakala says that although traditional fashion is fading, Zambians should still uphold their culture and modest way of dressing. She says they should dress with decency instead of exposing their bodies.
“In as much as we sell modernized clothing, it is important that we encourage our youths to buy and put on [clothes] that are decency,” she says.
Sakala says that now that it is the hot season here, immodesty is even worse. She says that people are wearing clothing for prostitution.
Meanwhile, Mukuka says that such fashion is also encouraging immoral and promiscuous behavior, especially among the youths here.
“Though these youths do not want to change their way of dressing, this kind of indecent dressing where a person puts on a short dress or skirt [or] a tight trouser promote [immorality],” she says. “Due to these kind of dressing, young girls attract even older men who seduce them into risk[y] behaviors, and this has given rise to the levels of HIV and AIDS and [morbidity] among the youths.”
She says women’s and men’s bodies are different so they should respect themselves by not exposing them to each other.
Some women here say indecent clothing has become such a problem that they are determined to become active in discouraging it.
Mukuka says she has been thinking of starting a campaign to promote decency when it comes to clothing. She says that even if she has to do it alone, she will do it in order to prevent a young generation from doing away with the traditional Zambian way of conservative dressing.
Sakala says she has already taken it upon herself to do the same. She says she encourages young and old customers alike at the boutique where she works to buy clothes that suit them and don’t expose their bodies.
Tembo says that one solution is reducing the importation of foreign clothing.
“It would be a good idea if people minimized importing [clothes] from other countries, as this will help to improve and promote our own designers here,” she says. “Promoting local fashion will improve their work, and they will have [a] market.”
Sakala says people should encourage designers here to create more modest clothing.
“Our designers should be encouraged to design [clothes] that are decency,” she says.
Sampa says that the fashion industry is picking up here as more people have started appreciating fashion. She says that people like knowledge about what clothing suits them.
She says that designers themselves need to be knowledgeable and work with the Ministry of Tourism in order to promote and enhance the traditional way dressing.
“The problem as designers, we do not have a platform,” she says. “We depend on the people to come to us and only design what people tell us. We lack exposure as designers, and we should be out there where the people are and what people say.”
She says sometimes designers design what the people want in order to sell clothes and make a living instead of positively influencing fashion here.
“We can only promote our tradition[al] way of dressing by working together as designers, government and the people,” Sampa says.
Sampa says she wants to leave more of a mark on the fashion industry here than the posters featuring her face around the city.
“I do not just want to remain on posters, but I want to live a legacy of Zambian fashion,” she says.
