Entry seventeen - High fashion

I recently noticed an article in the newspaper entitled "How to Dress Down Without Looking Trashy". The accompanying picture showed a man in a button-down open-collared shirt, tucked into a spotlessly ironed pair of black dress trousers. While I don't generally peruse the fashion section of any publication (and I did not read the accompanying article), this title summarised a problem of how to dress that has troubled me since my first visit to Uganda.

If I were trying fool someone in Toronto or New York into thinking that I am respectably not uncool, I would probably put on my faded jeans or khakis, battered cheap dress shoes, wrinkled button-down shirt, corny 1980s sport jacket and dirt-stained fedora on a walk down to a hole-in-the-wall drinking joint around the East Village or Queen West. My cover would inevitably be blown after a few drinks, when I would inevitably begin rambling on the politics of postcolonial subjectivity or the Red Sox postseason woes. However, at the level of appearance, my collection of ragged attire would not pin me as somehow disrespectful or trashy.

There are several varieties of "scenes" in Kampala, but none equivalent to those that I am used to in North America. The club-goers are often decked out in even more over-the-top fashions than their North American counterparts. The middle-class watering holes are filled with brand-new spotless suits and the occasional pristine dress. Even the Rastafarian-types wear the latest style of jeans and Bob Marley shirts at assorted bars and clubs of various levels of seediness. Even the student hangouts where I feel more comfortable are jammed more respectable high-fashion folks than I would ordinarily tolerate at home.

After my first trip to Uganda, I stopped wearing torn jeans and t-shirts after realizing how run-down I looked, even next to someone who only owned one-set of clothes. After my second trip to East Africa, I began tucking in my button-down shirts for similar reasons to the previous change. Unfortunately, I cannot bring myself to take the next step and begin wearing brass cufflinks, a suit, tie and kiwi-polished black shoes, as many other Makerere students do.

I have my theories on Ugandans' apparent fear of "looking trashy" when "dressing down". The people who wear ragged clothes are mostly crude clueless bazungu and people who cannot afford to dress to impress. A premium is put on looking not necessarily well-off, but modern or with it. The anti- and/or post- modern trends in dress, style and culture in North America are, in general, less pronounced in Uganda.

Although the adage that there is no accounting for taste may still be accurate, there is some accounting for the limits within which one can imagine tastefulness. Any person's aesthetic tastes are governed by the socio-economic, cultural, historical, blah blah blah contexts in which s/he lives. The tradition of the starving artist (going back centuries), anti-modern chic (well predating the hippies), and commercial saturation in North America and Europe contributes to the Rolling Stones being the epitome of cool because they spend hours making it look as if they don't comb their hair or care that their clothes are torn. And what else explains a shrewd multi-millionaire businessman such as Mick Jagger singing that he has no money, sleeps in bordello doorways and can't get any satisfaction out of life?

Now, this type of American style is not simply a cynical attempt to rub shoulders with poverty without having to experience it. It is often a poignant way of criticising unrestrained consumerism. Similarly, Ugandan high fashion is not a desperate attempt to display one's distance from poverty - and it is certainly not a simple imitation of Western consumerism. Unlike its American counterpart, it has no pretensions about looking poor, and it is predicated on showing respect to others.

However, if style is relative, it is also subjective. I still prefer my dirty fedora and faded khakis, and I look forward to wearing them again in a couple of months.