adminVincent Gono Magazine Editor
WITH the globalisation concept driven by technological advancement pacing up and turning the world into one big village whose village head is not known, the paradox that Africa faces is that little if anything of the surviving vestiges of its culture is bound to remain. The winds of globalisation seems so determined to blow everything that is socially Western the African way while Africa is seemingly very gullible and ready to embrace with unquestionable loyalty and humility the erosion of its culture and tradition in favour of everything invented by the West even when it is the worst.
And the irony is that nothing African has been adopted by the West, for they only want to be regarded and seen as the pacesetters.
Yes, it is clear that the West has assumed the big brother tag where it is the one that sets the standards for everything. And perhaps for fear of being labelled retrogressive and backward, Africa finds itself pacing slavishly behind the West and each time it looks like it is catching up something new is thrown into the market just to ensure Africa is never at par with the West.
While a lot has been written about how Western culture is influencing our way of thinking, talking and even our eating habits, it is the dressing part that I am more worried about, in particular the maternity dress.
The maternity dress was one of the surviving debris of African costume that most people thought would remain unweathered by time but alas it is quickly losing its ground and giving way to some funny clothing that pregnant women now put on. I will not dignify them by calling them maternity dresses simply because they are not.
For maternity dresses are designed to give comfort and loosen the body allowing more room for the bulging stomach up until the time for delivery.
Western culture has however easily managed to invade any other part of our lives where phrases such as “classy and trendy” are generally coined and used to refer to those with a Western flair of doing things. It is not bad. But it becomes something else when Africans in the name of being trendy shun their traditional beliefs in favour of alien ones that do not add any value or promote the African way of life.
I have observed that the conventional maternity dress is slowly being shunned especially by youthful women who are now seized with some funny and punk dressing that is tighter than the old African maternity dresses.
The new maternity clothes come in different shapes and sizes but what I have observed without necessarily being judgemental is that they look very unfitting, funny and tighter around the bulging stomach thereby giving the one putting them on a very comical look.
But culture is dynamic and maybe those are some of its dynamics lest we remain rigid and find ourselves with nothing to wear.
But that is beside the point. The point is that in some African societies culture demands that after giving birth, the maternity dress is given to the woman’s mother as a present. This according to tradition was a way of thanking the woman’s mother for giving birth to a fruitful woman and in a way cultivated the spirit of giving.
More so, it will be of no use to the young women after giving birth.
However, with the changing times, it is no longer the case. Not because the women’s mothers are refusing the maternity dresses but because of the funny and indecent maternity clothes that are purchased by their daughters.
In town it is common to see young pregnant ladies putting on a pair of leggings and what looks like an oversize t-shirt or blouse that goes just beyond the waistline to cover the bulging belly and a little part of the thighs. And to imagine that same pair of leggings being given to the old woman after giving birth is just taking our imaginations too wild.
What it means is that the culture of giving and having the grandmother counting the number of grandchildren she has through the number of maternity dresses has been rendered useless as they are no longer beneficiaries of such clothes.
Fashion designer Gilmore Moyo said it was an expression of failure to appreciate fashion and style for pregnant women to put on leggings and tight fitting clothing.
He said it was easy for those who wanted to look fashionable while pregnant to go and have their maternity dresses done specifically for them by fashion designers.
“There is nothing fashionable about pregnant women putting on leggings. It’s just not acceptable. To me it’s just a bold statement of ignorance of style and fashion trends. Besides, I think that will be selfish because it shows one is not putting into consideration the baby they will be carrying,” said the renowned fashion designer.
Historian and cultural guru Pathisa Nyathi said it was true that the maternity dress used to be given to the mother of the woman after she had given birth because the mother was the closest relative.
He said it was no longer the case because of the evolving times that have seen women no longer prepared to hide their bulging tummies in the loose maternity dress perhaps because they were too proud and wanted to tell the world that they were fertile.
“You will agree with me that the maternity dresses that we used to see when we were growing up are no longer the ones that we see today. Back then the women would hide the disfigurement but now they are no longer doing that. They are happy with it. Maybe it’s a way of telling people that they are fertile because no one really wants to be infertile.
“But the issue is whether the choice of clothes, some of which look very funny, do not exert pressure on the baby. The maternity dress was tailored to give comfort to both the mother and the baby but these days the women wear their normal dresses with no due regard to the pressure they will be exerting to the embryotic liquids that surround the baby.
“I believe it is unhealthy, beside it having affected the cultural way of life where the mother no longer gets the maternity dress because it is no longer the maternity dress that we used to know. It is just some clothing that is not fit to be given to an African elderly woman. And yes the evolvement of fashion has greatly affected our culture as a people,” he said.
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