Berliner Boersenzeitung - Floor-length and horns: Namibia's Herero dress endures

EUR -
AED 3.831072
AFN 72.927229
ALL 98.419269
AMD 410.271893
ANG 1.872215
AOA 957.496706
ARS 1061.692588
AUD 1.668305
AWG 1.877444
AZN 1.777282
BAM 1.955189
BBD 2.097545
BDT 124.141237
BGN 1.955855
BHD 0.391978
BIF 3071.340978
BMD 1.043024
BND 1.410859
BOB 7.178758
BRL 6.347889
BSD 1.038876
BTN 88.318423
BWP 14.358517
BYN 3.399738
BYR 20443.276614
BZD 2.088248
CAD 1.495916
CDF 2993.480167
CHF 0.932343
CLF 0.037343
CLP 1030.408256
CNY 7.610327
CNH 7.606363
COP 4547.280118
CRC 524.136339
CUC 1.043024
CUP 27.640144
CVE 110.230581
CZK 25.128859
DJF 184.992236
DKK 7.459297
DOP 63.260247
DZD 140.605096
EGP 53.072428
ERN 15.645365
ETB 129.499464
FJD 2.41674
FKP 0.826056
GBP 0.830004
GEL 2.931306
GGP 0.826056
GHS 15.271232
GIP 0.826056
GMD 75.098122
GNF 8975.197506
GTQ 8.004501
GYD 217.342135
HKD 8.110923
HNL 26.370766
HRK 7.481515
HTG 135.907563
HUF 414.018477
IDR 16867.059138
ILS 3.805965
IMP 0.826056
INR 88.607528
IQD 1360.875069
IRR 43898.289923
ISK 145.105945
JEP 0.826056
JMD 162.539247
JOD 0.739613
JPY 163.153034
KES 134.118122
KGS 90.743481
KHR 4174.696457
KMF 486.179751
KPW 938.721302
KRW 1508.651632
KWD 0.3212
KYD 0.86573
KZT 545.579643
LAK 22737.90012
LBP 93027.952144
LKR 305.004763
LRD 188.551125
LSL 19.125728
LTL 3.07978
LVL 0.630915
LYD 5.104406
MAD 10.455435
MDL 19.135025
MGA 4901.469523
MKD 61.515792
MMK 3387.702296
MNT 3544.196494
MOP 8.316603
MRU 41.315099
MUR 49.23465
MVR 16.066474
MWK 1801.337535
MXN 20.937842
MYR 4.701994
MZN 66.653144
NAD 19.125728
NGN 1616.208293
NIO 38.228063
NOK 11.812512
NPR 141.309876
NZD 1.845228
OMR 0.401355
PAB 1.038876
PEN 3.868392
PGK 4.212685
PHP 61.403232
PKR 289.16061
PLN 4.263169
PYG 8100.470639
QAR 3.787117
RON 4.976899
RSD 116.931488
RUB 107.374772
RWF 1448.147818
SAR 3.91792
SBD 8.744252
SCR 14.545014
SDG 627.382961
SEK 11.51065
SGD 1.414241
SHP 0.826056
SLE 23.784779
SLL 21871.701575
SOS 593.714613
SRD 36.642527
STD 21588.497505
SVC 9.090162
SYP 2620.630141
SZL 19.121029
THB 35.692677
TJS 11.364851
TMT 3.661015
TND 3.310266
TOP 2.442871
TRY 36.683145
TTD 7.050798
TWD 34.034966
TZS 2467.229611
UAH 43.568696
UGX 3810.81008
USD 1.043024
UYU 46.335532
UZS 13393.817798
VES 53.689938
VND 26550.18399
VUV 123.829936
WST 2.881655
XAF 655.752242
XAG 0.03535
XAU 0.000398
XCD 2.818826
XDR 0.792453
XOF 655.752242
XPF 119.331742
YER 261.147252
ZAR 19.11033
ZMK 9388.474223
ZMW 28.750023
ZWL 335.853405
  • SCS

    -0.5800

    11.74

    -4.94%

  • NGG

    0.8200

    58.5

    +1.4%

  • RBGPF

    59.9600

    59.96

    +100%

  • RIO

    -0.0900

    58.64

    -0.15%

  • AZN

    0.9100

    65.35

    +1.39%

  • VOD

    0.0100

    8.39

    +0.12%

  • GSK

    0.1700

    33.6

    +0.51%

  • RYCEF

    -0.0100

    7.27

    -0.14%

  • CMSC

    0.0200

    23.86

    +0.08%

  • BCE

    0.0500

    23.16

    +0.22%

  • RELX

    -0.3100

    45.47

    -0.68%

  • BTI

    0.1131

    36.24

    +0.31%

  • BCC

    -0.2600

    122.75

    -0.21%

  • CMSD

    0.0000

    23.56

    0%

  • BP

    0.1900

    28.6

    +0.66%

  • JRI

    0.1100

    12.06

    +0.91%

Floor-length and horns: Namibia's Herero dress endures
Floor-length and horns: Namibia's Herero dress endures / Photo: SIMON MAINA - AFP

Floor-length and horns: Namibia's Herero dress endures

From his humble Windhoek workshop, Namibia's leading fashion designer is keeping alive the love for the Herero people's traditional dress with horned headgear, a full-length skirt and a link to German colonisers accused of genocide.

Text size:

McBright Kavari's sewing room is piled high with seemingly ordinary fabric that he transforms with labour and skill into elegant and voluminous dresses called ohorokova.

Kavari's designs may introduce modern twists, but they maintain the distinctive and conservative character of a garment believed to have its roots in the arrival of German missionaries in this arid southwestern African land in the early 19th century.

"Myself being a Herero, I felt like that to keep the dress alive, I have to think outside the box and modify it and make it lovable for the youth and the young generation," he told AFP.

Kavari always includes one or two ohorokova outfits in his collections. His creations have walked runways in China, Ethiopia, Ghana and even Germany, the former colonial power that historians say committed the first genocide of the 20th century against the Herero and Nama, another of Namibia's ethnic groups.

"I want to show it (the ohorokova) to the world to tell more people about our Herero people," he said. "Once it's on stage, it wows everybody. Everybody wants to know more about it. It's very attached to history as well."

The German occupiers are believed to have killed at least 60,000 Herero between 1904 and 1908, about 80 percent of the population at the time, in outright massacres or by locking them into concentration camps. About 10,000 Nama people also died.

It is not certain how Herero women came to adopt the ohorokova, replacing the long, hide aprons that they wore before, but the dress has endured despite the passage of time and its links to German colonisation.

"We don't know if it was a choice to adopt that dress, or if it happened by force," said Maria Caley, fashion lecturer at the University of Namibia.

But it carried through the traditional values of the Herero people, such as that a woman should cover her body and not even show her knees, Caley said.

And the Herero version of the dress is "completely different" to that of the first missionaries, having been adapted and appropriated to represent the Herero people, she said.

- Horned headdress -

Perhaps the most striking piece of the outfit is the headdress, called otjikaiva, which resembles the horns of a cow, reflecting the Herero roots as cattle herders.

"The headdress used to be very plump and chunky, not so wide from the head," Caley said. "But now it has become very thin and very, very stylized."

This is only one of Kavari's innovations. Some of his designs have added several layered petticoats to the floor-length skirts, or abandoned the sleeves.

He caused an outcry with a design in 2013 that featured a snake in the headdress of a creation for the country's Miss Universe contender.

"The journey hasn't been that easy," said the designer. "People are not easy when it comes to change."

"Non-negotiables" are the length of the skirt and conservative neckline, said one of his top customers, Yamillah Vetarapi Katjirua, who owns about 50 creations from flesh-coloured to aquamarine and lapis lazuli.

"He has been able to maintain the integrity of the dress but still make it modern so that young people don't disassociate from it," she said. "For me he has struck that balance very well between modernising and respect."

That so many people have an opinion on the dress shows that this aspect of the Herero culture is still "very much alive", said Caley.

The Herero are a relatively small group: only around 179,000 remain, less than six percent of Namibia's population, according to the 2023 census.

"I feel they fell in love with the dress, they are more in love with the dress," Kavari said. "Every young Herero lady is owning one or two dresses in their closet."

By taking his designs from one of the world's most sparsely populated countries to international catwalks, Kavari said he wants "to keep the people aware that there is a tribe in Namibia, the Herero-speaking people".

(K.Müller--BBZ)