Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world, yet it’s desert was recently flooded with high-fashion. Adam Levin reports on a fabulous folly
Alphadi mounts the podium. His trademark embroidered fez is askew as usual, his pupils alive with excitement. “This,” he announces, wringing his hands passionately, “is pure folly”.
All around us, the folly sprawls out across the orange dunes of Tiguidit. There are hundreds of grass igloos, borrowed from the local Tuareg pastoralists to house the visitors; neon beams to lead the way through the dunes; dust-caked 4X4’s with mannequin or model plastered on their bonnets; toilets; plastic chairs; and a grand podium, shaped like a Tuareg cross and set off against a spotlit desert cliff.
In a few moments, we are to witness an epic moment in African history – an extravaganza of fashion and music comprising Africa’s 20 most important designers and the cream of European couture, set here, in a remote patch of Saharan sands in one of the world’s poorest and least developed countries.
FIMA, or the Festival International de la Mode Africaine, has come a long way. For the past decade, Alphadi, Niger’s only couturier of any significance, has been negotiating with sponsors, heads of state and couture houses to realise an extraordinary dream. But this dream is not simply about fashion, it is about bringing a chaotic clutch of around 1 000 invited guests, news teams, fashion victims and desert specialists to the ends of the earth and, as Alphadi expands emotively, “giving a chance to a country – and a continent – that has suffered so much”.
Until four years ago, rebel Tuaregs, seeking independence from the predominantly Hausa government, 900km south, in the capital, Niamey, kept this region in a grip of long-knived terror. As recently as last year, tourists were attacked in the region, and today, tour agencies in the nearby, faceless town of Agadez, must pay protection money to the rebels. Given the desperate Saharan soils and lack of infrastructure, tourism is the only viable commodity in this area, and given the relative peace in the region, Niger has a lot riding on this evening’s event.
It is hoped that FIMA will become Niger’s fashion biennial, just as the MASA dance festival is for Cote d’Ivoire, or the FESPACO film festival is for Burkina Faso, but the benefits of couture la desert have yet to be seen.
Our journey began two days ago, on a dark, freezing morning at Paris’ Roissy Airport. Kenzo, the Paris-based Japanese designer is here, as are the representatives of Yves Saint Laurent, Thierry Mugler, Trussardi, Issey Miyake, Christian Lacroix and many more. Supermodel Alek Wek is hiding under a balaclava. I take fashion and hair notes, wondering just how well the ensembles will withstand the journey.
Six hours later, our plane clunks down onto Agadez’s dust-bowl of a runway. There are Tuareg men, dancing and chanting, vintage sunglasses tucked neatly behind their cheches. Women, in gawdy, sequinned robes, yell and clap. Alek Wek mounts a camel for the photographers. The Absolut Vodka rep’s blonde coiffure is suffering visibly in the sandy wind.
Predictably, it is a chaotic scene. Visas have been issued hurriedly on the aeroplane, but Agadez airport is clearly ill-equipped for such numbers. We pile into 4X4’s, borrowed from all over the country, and forge on to Tiguidit, but it is not long before we are on our knees, digging sand out from under the tyres and pushing. The site is heavily guarded – to ensure against theft, I am told – though what precisely a group of Tuareg tribesmen would do with an Yves Saint Laurent frock, I cannot be sure.
Night falls in the desert. In the neon beams, tiny white mice and big black dung beetles scurry about, bewildered. But these are not the only confused locals. The following morning, I sit at the edge of the site, with a group of Tuaregs. Tea is brewing in a tiny pot as an old woman weaves a haunting, ancient melody on the imzad, or local violin. The Tuaregs are disgruntled. They have uprooted their lives, rented out their houses, and yet still cannot fathom what is going on.
As in much of Africa, fashion trends are a foreign concept around here. Haute couture is as remote as the sea. In the Agadez market, tailors rattle up traditional garb on antique sewing machines, and young people amble around in Taiwanese Nike T- shirts – that’s about as trendy as it gets. “We haven’t sold many handicrafts,” Leyla Dawaka complains. “So what’s the point of all this? The people are messing up the dunes.”
Meanwhile, in a tent behind the podium, the designers are pinning up a frenzy. South Africa’s Gavin Rajah is at wits end with the organisation. “They could put needles in my eyes rather than drag me here again,” he says. Namibia’s Melanie Hartveld is pinning porcupine quills into place, while Senegal’s Oumou Csy straps CD’s to a vast, rainbow ballgown.
Satya, Kenzo’s unmissable model, is shaving his famous bleached beard with a bottle of Evian, while XulyBet, the Malian-born Paris catwalk favourite, arranges a rail of tie- dyed lycra. XulyBet doesn’t quite buy the romance of this African renaissance. “Perhaps they should have held this in Agadez with the locals,” he suggests wryly.
Yet, despite the ironies and disorganisation, the fantasy of Alphadi’s coup is dazzling. Absolut Vodka has flown in ice sculptures from Scandinavia. I latch on to the Mugler people and Kenzo, who manages to wangle a few free bottles of vodka. There is a bar carved from a block of ice. Some local children finger it amazedly. Absolut decadence, I’d say. We swig away at the vodka, as a caravan of camels charges across the dunes. The mayor of Washington; the presidents of Chad, Niger and Gambia; Unesco representatives shuffle into place on the leather pouffes and dromedary-wool carpets, and the show begins. Young Tuareg muslims look on embarrassedly, as a group of topless dancers from Abidjan begin to writhe and shake.
The richness and variety of the continent’s couture offerings is wondrous. Oumou Sangare and Aicha Kone yell griot melodies into the sky, and Alphadi glows in the excitement. There is raffia, refined into slinky wedding dresses; bustiers encrusted with hand-painted cowrie shells; impossibly high head-wraps, and yet throughout, wearability gives way to cultural spectacle.
Whether African fashion can elevate itself from an exotic curiosity to a viable export-earning industry, is not yet apparent. And what this is achieving for Niger is uncertain. Does fashion have a place in a country where the levels of malnutrition and illiteracy remain alarming? Or should its luxury be reserved for developed societies? I guess not. For, even here in the desert, culture and creativity are as essential as water.
I stroll out onto the dunes as the European collections take the stage. There is a row of camels, transfixed by the Mugler range, chewing ponderously over the sequinned fetishwear. It is a moment of rare surrealism, and immense pride for me. For, in its extremes, its audacity and deep sense of hope, this event is a chilling metaphor for this continent. There is a group of young Tuareg men next to me, in long braids and blue cotton robes. One of them ambles up to me and wagers nervously, “Excuse me, can I ask you something, mister?”
“Sure, go ahead …”
“Er, do they always dress like this in Europe?”
“Yes, quite often, I think.” He can’t help but laugh. And neither can I.
Adam Levin is a producer for Times Media TV’s Elegance. Their report on the festival will be broadcast on SABC1 at 6:30pm on November 24