For Mani.

AFRICAN
WAX PRINT
TEXTILES
ANNE GROSFILLEY

PRESTEL
Munich · London · New York
CONTENTS
A textile landscape 6
Indigo 16

Floral indiennes & wax prints

Labels and selvedges 34

Royal traditions 40
Alphabet 51
Religions 56

A singular creation

Print & block 72

Indonesian derivatives 80
Colours 91

A shared market

Fashion and counterfeit 104

Love 113
Women 122
Animals 128

From fabric to clothing

Magazines 149
Elegant accessories 152
Urban life 160
Patriotism 170

On your marks, steady, go!

Decoration from the earth 186

Flora & fauna 194
Inter-weaving 200
Addis-Abeba 208

From kanga to shweshwe

Floral indienne inspiration 224

Shweshwe 228
Mourning 236
Important people 242

Epilogue 251

Appendix 253

My first journey to the African
continent dates back to 1984, when
I was 12. I went on holiday with my
family to Togo, to visit my paternal
uncle who was building roads there.
I visited the Assigamé, the “big
market” in Lomé, at a time when
wax prints were making the Nana
Benz wealthy. I was particularly
struck by the colours of the fabrics
that everyone was wearing; it
seemed “normal” to me that the
women of Togo should wear these
wax prints, known as “African
fabrics”, since they were African!
6 iconographic directory of wax prints.
A TEXTILE LANDSCAPE
I returned to Africa four years later, this time
to Burkina Faso, and alone: my sixth form col-
lege in Montpellier was twinned with the Girls’
National Sixth Form College in Ouagadougou
(it has since been renamed the Nelson Mandela
Sixth Form College). I started a pen friendship
with Gnoutouko, a young Burkinabée who I met
there and at whose home I stayed. In Ouaga-
dougou, too, wax prints were everywhere, and
I wanted to bring a sample back to France as
a souvenir of my stay. It was after voicing my
desire to buy “African fabrics” at the market
that I discovered what wax print really is. My
host family asked me if I preferred “English” or
“Dutch” wax prints, and I pointed out the one
that Gnoutouko’s aunt was wearing. Faced with
my incomprehension, they told me that what we
call “African fabrics” actually come from Europe.
In the end, I bought fancy Faso Fani, because I
really wanted to take back a local product, even
if the design was a copy of a wax print made in
a country neighbouring my own. This episode
turned out to be a seminal moment, one which
was to determine the course of my life. I was
in my final year at school, already passionate
about ethnology, and my philosophy lessons
revealed the sense of the word “otherness” to
me. The study of wax prints seemed so obvious
to me: it was through this that I would explore
otherness, the relationship between European
and African cultures.
At university, I met Claude, with whom I have
now shared my life for more than 25 years.
A Frenchman of Ivory Coast descent, Claude
was from Burgundy but wanted to continue
his studies in England. I followed him, on the
condition that I could choose our destination:
it was to be Manchester, the one-time textile
powerhouse and the city of English wax prints.
Today, this north-western city is famous for
its music and football clubs, but it was once
the capital of the industrial revolution and
textiles, where Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
studied the tremendous changes in 19th-cen-
tury society. The huge buildings running along
the canal, which in the 1990s became home
to fashionable clubs and recording studios,
were originally the offices and warehouses
of rich merchants.
In 1993, Manchester saw the final days of the
once-flourishing textile industry and of the
international trade which had been its glory for
so long. I met the last salesperson to sell Vlisco
Dutch wax print, just weeks before the office
MAP OF AFRICA. HITARGET RW0032. CHINA.
of the import–export United Africa Company
(UAC) finally closed, and I started my research at
the very last unit producing English wax prints,
the ABC factory. At the time, the design office
was located right in the city centre, on Sharp
Street. Margaret Hickson, surprised that a young
French woman should be so enthusiastic about
this subject to the point of coming to live in
this “rainy country”, enthusiastically provided
me with all the codes I needed to decipher the
7
MANCHESTER AN INDUSTRIAL
COTTONOPOLIS AND COMMERCIAL
REVOLUTION
From the end of the 18th century,
From the 17th century onwards, and despite major technological innovations brought the
the fact that Africa produced its own textiles, textile sector into the industrial era. One of
the “Dark Continent” became an export mar- the many consequences of this was to turn
ket for European manufacturers. As early as the Gulf of Guinea into a veritable consumer
1668, the Dutch physician and writer Olfert haven for European products.
Dapper published a list of fabrics suitable for In 1733 in England, John Kay invented the fly-
the West African markets in his book, Descrip- ing shuttle. As a result, productivity increased
tion of Africa. The major shipping companies considerably as only one person was required
brought cotton fabrics from India to the to operate a loom and produce very wide
ports of Liverpool in England and Nantes in cloths. Richard Arkwright invented the spinning
France, and these in turn supplied the rest of frame, developed into the water frame in 1769,
Europe, Africa, America and the Caribbean. This a hydraulic system designed for cotton spin-
trade, later known as intorica (short for India ning. Cotton was the new white gold. While it
to Africa), focused on checked textiles from only grew in tropical zones, its transformation
Madras, and manually or stamp-printed cloths. into fibre and fabric benefited from an ideal
In Europe, the fashion for these celebrated climate in the from the damp north-west of
chintz or floral indiennes was such that soon England. Finally, in 1783, Scotsman Thomas
specialist factories were set up in the Alsace, Bell applied for a patent for a printing machine
in several French towns, and in Manchester. with rollers, which proved extremely competi-
Thanks to its proximity to the spinning mills tive compared with the boards and embossed
of Lancashire, Cheshire and Derbyshire, Man- stamps previously used to print on fabric. 
chester had, by the end of the 18th century, The advances made in the sea trade added to
become one of the principal manu­facturing these improved manufacturing techniques.
centres of floral indiennes and a cornerstone The invention of the steamboat made travel
of the international trade faster and contact more fre-
for cotton fabrics. Its out- THIS TRADE, LATER KNOWN AS quent, which facilitated the
put was distributed as far as INTORICA (INDIA TO AFRICA), transport of perishables and
India and the West African FOCUSED ON CHECKED TEXTILES smaller quantities of mer-
coasts. And the question is FROM MADRAS, AND MANUALLY chandise. The Gold Coast
which is more surprising: OR STAMP-PRINTED CLOTHS (the south of present-day
the fact that Indians were Ghana) and the Ivory Coast,
buying floral indiennes “made in England”, which were already established as centres for Top: Floral indienne pattern
or that African people adopted these fabrics the trade in gold and ivory, could now also printed in Manchester (UK) for
the West African market at the
despite them being twice removed from their supply the plantation palm oil and ground-
beginning of the 20th century
own culture. nut oil needed for making soap, candles and (left), and reproduced in India
This early form of globalisation relied on both machine lubricants. The production and export in 2015 (right).
the remarkable intensification in international of these raw materials enriched some African
Above: Madras woven in Chennai
trade and exchange of goods between conti- populations which, in return, increased the (India) for the Nigerian market.
nents as well as the mechanisation of textile demand for imported manufactured goods. The colours contrast with those
printing processes, which were part of the No transaction occurred without bartering, of the madras worn in the West
Indies, as a chrome finish was
technological progress which dominated the and the textile producers remained aware
added locally to yellow it to suit
industrial revolution. of this, always aiming to develop an under- the tastes of the overseas
standing between all parties. On the Gold populations.
Coast, British pieces of silver were used in
Right: Togotex fancy, with a
place of the traditional cowry currency until portrait of the founder of a
1965 when they were replaced by the cedi, Togolese Church. Togo.

.
 the Ghanaian currency following the country’s
independence. The CFA franc, introduced in
1945, remains the official currency of over
a dozen French-speaking African countries.
It was initially indexed to the French franc,
and is now linked to the euro, and has been
far more conducive to the exchange of goods
imported from Great Britain and Holland than
the regularly devalued Nigerian naira. There
are as many stakes involved in this business
as there are patterns in wax fabric. However,
when considering the technical progress and
structural developments that have helped the
textile trade in Africa flourish, from its begin-
nings until today, it is important to remember
one major factor: the influence of missionaries.
They prepared people’s minds for a new desire:
the wearing of European fabrics.

THE ROLE OF THE
MISSIONARIES
From 1860, the work of the Basel
Mission became a determining factor in the
distribution of industrially produced cotton
fabrics. This Protestant organisation, founded
in Switzerland, set itself the mission of mak-
ing indigenous people financially independ-
ent – through crafts and agriculture – and to
evangelise them. It did, of course, also ensure
the missionaries’ supplies, so much so that the
Basel merchants who were at the head of the
mission hoped to make this latter an integral
part of global trade.
It was within this context that the missionar-
ies taught young African girls to sew, a skill
previously reserved for men. They introduced
these girls to European fabrics – which were
easier to work when compared with the thicker
local weaves – as well as the sewing machine,
invented and patented in 1830 by the French-
man Barthélemy Thimmonier and sold around
the world by Singer. These factors contributed
to the establishment of a new dress code.
The missionaries developed a valuable exper-
tise through contact with the African popula-
tions. They informed the European traders
about African tastes, and the first manufactur-
ers of export fabrics relied on their advice. As
the traders themselves did not travel, they
simply interpreted the information they had
received for an imaginary customer base. All
things considered, the objectives of the Basel
Mission might be summarised as three Cs:
Christianity, civilisation and commerce.
The missionaries also noticed that some
women on the Gold Coast named the patterns
printed on affordable English fabric, which has
become known globally as “Manchester” cloth.
Indeed, these designs found an echo in African
cultures, in particular with the Akan people,
of which the powerful Asante are a subgroup.
The British were very interested in this region
as the Asante possessed large gold deposits,
and it was through the relationships they built
with Asante dignitaries that they were able to
conquer the region.
Textiles therefore formed a significant eco-
nomic stake, which did not fail to exacerbate
the competition between the European nations
that wanted to extend their spheres of influ-
ence across the world. And as they gradually
carved up and shared out the African continent,
Southeast Asia also became an ever more
covetable area.

.
THE At the same time, Holland was fighting the
Padri War (1803–1837) in Sumatra. This was

EMERGENCE a political-religious conflict led by a Wahhabi

group who had set about converting a part of

OF HOLLAND the Indonesian archipelago to a radical form

of Islam. While claiming to defend the local
population Holland, the colonial power, really
Having robbed the Dutch of their colonial had its sights set on the island of Java and
empire, the English occupied the Indone- through it, control of the trade routes. The
sian archipelago between 1811 and 1816 superiority of Dutch weaponry and its involve-
and started to sell cotton fabrics there. They ment with local leaders allowed it to achieve
were forced to hand Java back to the Dutch its aims. Furthermore, Holland had been able
in 1816. This started a trade war between the to rely on some 3,000 African soldiers, sent
two powers which prompted the Dutch textile from the Gold Coast to fight on the Java front.
industry to create a new Asia-inspired cloth, A legend was born of this multicultural conflict:
in keeping with the floral indiennes of previ- “Once upon a time there was a cloth intended
ous centuries, and which would enthuse the for Indonesia that no one found attractive. It
African population. was then introduced to West Africa, where
it met with huge success. The wax print had
REGIONAL RIVALRIES found its market, and the cloth and the people
When the Netherlands won back were never again to be separated.”
its market share, the Haarlemse Katoen
Maatschappij HKM (Haarlem cotton company) THE BIRTH
won the monopoly for the importation of tex- OF THE WAX PRINT
tiles. The victory, however, formed part of a Once their presence in Java was
complex geopolitical situation. assured, the Dutch developed an ambitious
On the European continent, Holland was forced industrial and commercial strategy to max-
to cede Flanders to Belgium in 1830, and imise profit on the Asian market. Following
thus it had to modernise its textile industry the method used to print floral indiennes, the
and install it in new regions. Holland adopted Dutch began to compete with the artisanal
the flying shuttle to improve batik production, mimick-
yield and create wider fab- ONCE UPON A TIME THERE ing the designs which were
rics. As a result, mass pro- WAS A CLOTH INTENDED FOR delicately drawn by hand
duction began, in particular INDONESIA THAT NO ONE using the hot wax resist
in 1834 at Prévinaire & FOUND ATTRACTIVE. IT WAS technique and highly vis-
Wilson in Haarlem in the THEN INTRODUCED TO WEST ible on the right and wrong
north of the country, and AFRICA, WHERE IT MET WITH sides of the fabric. The qual-
at P.F. van Vlissingen & HUGE SUCCESS. ity of these fabrics was uni-
Co. (the future Vlisco) in versally recognised, and the
Helmond in the south in 1846. Although the local elite rated them highly. In around 1850,
country was able to obtain preferential import the Prévinaire-HKM company attempted to Above: A young woman in a
rates, this did not always guarantee competi- launch a true industrial batik. Known as “wax” Manchester (United Kingdom)
factory printing on fabric using a
tiveness for Dutch manufacturers. However, print, this textile was unique but did not man- wooden stamp in around 1823.
they nevertheless distinguished themselves age to establish itself against the Java batiks,
through the quality of their dyes – especially for aesthetic and economic reasons. For one Right: Indonesian batik from the
island of Java. The edging of the
the red – and these did artificially bolster thing, the veined effect caused when the dye
cloth bears triangular patterns
Dutch supremacy over the British. bled into the wax cracks was not considered (tumpal) symbolising the growth
attractive. Nor was the price: the Java artisans of bamboo. The central section
features a representation of the
increased productivity by applying the wax
wings of Garuda. These two
with stamps made from copper bands rather patterns were introduced into
than the traditional bamboo stylus (known the iconography of wax print.

.
 as canting), and the advantageous rates from
which the Dutch products benefited were
suspended in 1872.
The industrialists were convinced of the quality
of the wax in which they had invested consid-
erable sums, and sought another outlet. It was
at this time that the missionaries reported to
the Scottish merchant Ebenezer Brown Fleming
(1853–1912) that 700 Gold Coast soldiers had
returned home from Java with batiks which
then became the latest craze in their home-
land. Paradoxically, it was the veined effect
and the imperfect alignment of colours added
with the stamp – considered to be flaws by
the Indonesians – that they found the most
pleasing. They appreciated the quality of the
colour penetration, an important aspect in
regions with fierce sunshine.
The demand was there, and Brown Fleming
seized the opportunity: in 1893, he delivered
the first cargo of Dutch industrial batiks to
the Gold Coast. As a result, Brown Fleming,
who specialised in the Asian markets, gained
exclusive rights to HKM’s designs. He set up
a large network of local agents who together
with the African people were able to direct
production. And this is how the patterns that
came from the “Manchester” cloth were trans-
ferred to wax prints.

From the marketing ambitions of a group of

missionaries to the legendary gallantry of
Africans returning home laden with gifts, wax
print is the composite product of an era when
Europe sought to control the world. Created
by adapting and borrowing from traditional
designs, this singular fabric whetted the appe-
tite of many manufacturers.

.
FROM EUROPE
TO AFRICA
Dutch wax has been influential for a long
time, as much for its prestige as for its excel-
lence. The Dutch textile industry was not only
the first historical wax producer, but – with
Vlisco – remains the only manufacturer in
Europe today. Wax, like the rest of the sector,
experienced exponential growth in the 20th
century, accompanied by crises that brought
about factory closures – Roessingh in 1935
and Ankersmit in 1965 – and mergers among
the big international groups such as the pio-
neer P.F. van Vlissingen (known as Vlisco).
Vlisco became a part of Gamma Holding in
1969 and, as a result, brought its exotic prints
section to the most power-
ful Dutch textile group in THE DUTCH TEXTILE INDUSTRY
Europe. It was eventually WAS NOT ONLY THE FIRST
bought out by Actis in 2010. HISTORICAL WAX PRODUCER,
Vlisco, the so-called “father BUT – WITH VLISCO – REMAINS
of wax print” has followed THE ONLY MANUFACTURER
a remarkable path for over IN EUROPE
170 years. Founded in 1846,
it purchased the original wax print designs
belonging to the HKM company when it ceased
trading in 1918.

A EUROPEAN
RIVALRY
Following the Dutch success, many
European manufacturers jumped on the wax
print bandwagon.
In Switzerland, several manufacturers in the can-
ton of Glarus produced wax print, in particular
Hohlenstein (from 1928 to 1974). But it was
thanks to the Brunnschweiler company, which
inherited a company in Ennenda that specialised
in madras fabrics, that wax print was to assert
itself. In England, wax print was produced from
1902 by several factories in the Manchester
area: Broad Oak, Newton Bank Printworks,
Horridge & Cornall-Bohold Works, B.F. Cromp-
ton, Astbury & Pickford and Marple Printing
Company. For these companies, which were
already using indigo dye and producing prints
for the African markets, wax print was a way to
diversify; some were not able to accomplish all

.

Top: Quality control room at
the Vlisco factory, in Helmond
(Netherlands).
Left and above: Manual block-­
printing of the design named
“Diamond”. Created in 1934
by the Ankersmitt company,
it became a part of the Vlisco
collection under the registration
number 14/50100.
Top right: The embellished wax
print A2122, created to celebrate
Vlisco’s 170th anniversary. The
factory, founded in 1846, did not
begin to produce wax print until
the start of the 20th century.
.
the stages of the process themselves, and so the
fabrics sometimes passed from one production
unit to another. In fact, English manufacturing
was completely dependent on the orders of
the traders known as merchant converters, who
were the key players in the industry. The most
important were Elson & Neill, H.J. Barrett, Grafton
African, A.H. Emery, J.A. Duke, Joseph Bridge,
Richard Brotherton and Logan Muckelt. Indeed,
it was these trade businesses which through
their contact with the consumers prospected,
came up with the designs, chose the colours,
supplied the raw cloth and were responsible
for the sale of the finished product. The English
factories did not maintain any stocks of wax
prints. As demand decreased at some factories
between 1940 and 1966, Newton Bank Print-
works, based in Hyde, Manchester, since 1816
and owned by the Ashton family, bought out
its competitors to become the only production
site for English wax until it closed in 2007. As
for the trade companies Grafton and Elson &
Neill, these were bought out by Brunnschweiler,
the traditional madras fabric distributor, which the major international companies were forced
progressively became a key partner on account to become involved in the industrialisation of
of its market knowledge and its commercial the new countries to protect their own outlets.
network in West Africa, particularly in Nigeria. Texoprint, which comprised the Ankersmitt and
Brunnschweiler was a recognised brand, and van Vlissingen companies, decided to reduce
although it was based in Switzerland, the com- production in the Netherlands and to position
pany was also registered in itself in the luxury sector. To
Manchester for its financial INDEED, IT WAS THESE TRADE offer the African consumer a
transactions. It was part of BUSINESSES WHICH THROUGH more accessible, locally pro-
the Calico Printers’ Associa- THEIR CONTACT WITH THE CON- duced wax print, it founded
tion which brought together SUMERS PROSPECTED, CAME UP the Ghana Textiles Printing
46 British textile companies WITH THE DESIGNS, CHOSE THE Company (the future GTP)
and represented 85 per COLOURS, SUPPLIED THE RAW in Ghana in 1966, then Uni-
cent of the UK’s production. CLOTH AND WERE RESPONSIBLE wax in Ivory Coast in 1968.
In 1970, English wax print FOR THE SALE OF THE FINISHED At the same time, the English
took on the name of Arnold PRODUCT Calico Printers’ Association
Brunnschweiler & Company, conglomerate opened wax
known under the acronym ABC. It was important print factories in Nigeria and Zaïre (the present
for ABC to distinguish itself from the rest in a Democratic Republic of the Congo).
sector that was undergoing great changes. The Swiss company Hohlenstein
Textil­druckerei AG financed the Akosombo
WORKING WITH THE Textiles Limited (ATL) factory which opened
INDEPENDENT STATES in 1967, with the support of United Trading
In 1959, all factories together pro- Company (UTC), which is also Swiss, and which
duced a total of 48.3 million metres (52.8 million operated in Nigeria, then in Senegal with the
yards) of wax print. When the West African states Société de Teinture, Blanchiment, Apprêts et
attained their independence in 1960, and with d’Impressions Africaine (Sotiba-Simpafric) in
the process of decolonisation that followed, Dakar in 1969.
DIRECTORY 2
T
he diversity of the labels affixed
to wax print fabrics reflects the
abundance of brands. They are
used to boast of luxury, with
golden letters and a scattering
of stars, the number of which,
however, is inversely proportionate to the actual
quality of the products! The name of the brand
that features on the selvedge is what counts.
Through these signatures, which have evolved
with the rhythm of the changes in the indus-
try, it is possible to unravel a potted history of
wax print. In England, the first wax prints bore
no signature. Then the name of the merchant
converters appeared, such as Elson & Neill or
Grafton-ABC, followed by the registration num-
ber of the design and an assurance: “Guaran-
teed English Wax”. At the end of the 1960s, the
emergence of the Ivory Coast and Togo markets
required the specification “True English Wax”
because the French-speaking Africans were
often convinced that the English wax print was
made in Nigeria, their English-speaking neigh-
bour. Then, in 1994, the devaluation of the CFA
franc caused the price of English wax print to
double in Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Lomé (Togo)
and Cotonou (Benin), and it became essential to
34
LABELS AND
SELVEDGES
avoid any confusion. The ABC company, forced
to justify the value of its products to keep its
customers, adapted its marketing strategy by
highlighting the quality of its fabrics. The com-
pany positioned itself as a brand and created
a logo depicting a sun, which was placed on
the selvedge with the assurance “Guaranteed
Wax ABC Made in England” along with a French
translation, stating the origin. The selvedge was
modified again in 2007 when the production
unit relocated to Ghana, a century after the fac-
tory launched its first wax print (1908), indicating
clearly: “Guaranteed Wax ABC Made in Ghana”
and “véritable wax ABC fabriqué au Ghana”.
When it comes to the real origin of a product,
however, the selvedge can be misleading. For
example, the wax print merchants John Jagger
and Albert Hill, whose company is registered in
Manchester, used the words “Jaggerhill Textiles
Manchester England” at the end of the 1990s
when their designs were printed in China.
The Dutch brand Vlisco defines itself simply as
“Guaranteed Dutch Wax Vlisco” and adds its
monogram “VVH” on the selvedge of its super-
waxes. The excellence of Dutch wax print, how-
ever, is such that its competition can sometimes
implicitly take advantage of it. ABC, for example,
produced a “true wax print of distinction”, a
luxury fabric with the acronym “VIP” added for a
London-based distributor who was also selling
the Vlisco brand, without giving any indication
of its geographic origin. This could have misled
clients to believe, intentionally or not, that the
high-quality wax print with an equally high
price tag had come from Holland. Even in the
Netherlands, some producers have concealed
the exact origin of their wax prints. One example
is the Jansen family which, for three generations,
has sold wax prints in Helmond, where Vlisco
is based. The company, called Jansen Holland,
entrusted several of its designs to ABC with the
selvedge words “Jansen Holland Guaranteed
Wax”. Since 2002, this company has operated
out of China under the Julius Holland brand,
perpetuating the Dutch legend with its stamp
“Guaranteed Wax Julius Holland” unchallenged.
On the other hand, no one claims that wax print
comes from China. In fact, the selvedge “Made
as Holland” or “Hollander” indicate Vlisco cop-
ies. Fabrics that come from India are, however,
identified as such.
Informative or misleading, the selvedge makes
wax print much more than a simple fabric, it
creates an object of desire.
SUPER PUISSANCE WAX. PHOENIX 9436. CHINA.

35
 WAX NANA BENZ 080605. ASIA.

FATOU WAX 511404, COPIED FROM VLISCO 14/0780. CH. AVOGAN A608107, COPIED FROM VLISCSO H516, CALLED “THE EYE OF MY RIVAL”. HOLYTEX. CHINA.

36
ABC A18716. ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM. VLISCO A1326. HOLLAND, NETHERLANDS.

ABC A19262. ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM. PRINTED IN GHANA. UNIWAX 11845. IVORY COAST.

37
WAX PRESTIGE PR7392 ALPHABET. ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM.

L
iteracy programmes for the peoples
of West African were advocated
in particular by the French and
the British, and began during the
days of the colonial empires. At
the turn of the 20th century, these
peoples, who until then had been purely oral
cultures, started to learn to read and write
under the guidance of their first teachers, the
missionaries.
The idea of printing the alphabet on to a wax
print is credited to a missionary, in around
1904. His cotton alphabet book met with a
resounding success with the first newly-literate
people who, delighted to show off their mastery
of the Latin alphabet in such an ostentatious
manner, could gain access to a new elite. The
alphabet book wax print has been a symbol
of social advancement ever since.
The best-known alphabet fabric was made
by Vlisco. The letters are printed on red and
yellow or green and yellow diamonds. ABC,
on the other hand, sometimes presents the
letters on horizontal lines, but both original
compositions are a good representation of a
classroom, with a pencil, ruler, maths lesson
on the blackboard, school book, and so on.
ALPHABET
These very popular alphabet prints have been
reproduced unchanged for over a century.
They are also easy to modify and new versions
have been created to reflect changes in fash-
ion, while ensuring the design remains firmly
anchored in modern times. The Dutch brand,
Julius Holland, has brought out a version which
replaces the blackboard with a computer, a
nod to the evolution of the way knowledge is
handed down. The same design also combines
groups of letters with a diamond to illustrate
that knowledge is precious. ABC sometimes
modifies the size of the shapes the letters
are set in, or the number of letters grouped
together. Vlisco plays on graphic reminders
through the representation of its various alpha-
bet book motifs – letters, numbers, a book,
a board – on a new rectangular background
representing a computer screen.
The Vlisco alphabet print, recognised every-
where, is a safe choice of design. The Ivory
Coast Democratic Party (PDCI) adopted it for a
commemorative pagne that was printed in trib-
ute to its founder member, Félix Houphouët-
Boigny, the father of independence and head
of state, after his death in 1993: the letters
were those of the party name, in the party
DIRECTORY 4
colour green, the diamonds in which the letters
were set formed the frame of a photographic
portrait of the president, and the outline of a
map of Ivory Coast marked with emblematic
elephants replaced the blackboard. It is not
difficult to understand why this fabric, with
its political overtones, won the popular vote.
It was a propaganda tool, a campaign pagne.
President Henri Konan Bédié, who claimed to
be the spiritual son of Houphuët-Boigny and
sought to be aligned with him, very quickly
copied the concept in an almost identical
composition rather lacking in originality. The
many versions, transpositions and twists of the
Vlisco alphabet print signify the importance
of education in African societies right up to
modern times. What is more, a command of
the alphabet will enable the consumers to read
the capital letters that border the wax print
selvedges, letters that are now as important
as those that feature on the central design,
since they give information about the quality
of the fabric.
51
COMMEMORATIVE PAGNE WITH A PORTRAIT OF THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF IVORY COAST, FÉLIX HOUPHOUÊT-BOIGNY.
FANCY UTEXI (UNION INDUSTRIELLE TEXTILE DE IVORY COAST). IVORY COAST.
PAGNE WITH A PORTRAIT OF THE IVORIAN PRESIDENT HENRI KONAN BÉDIÉ. FANCY UTEXI. IVORY COAST. VLISCO A1322. HOLLAND. NETHERLANDS.

VLISCO 14/0017. ORIGINAL HKM DESIGN, 1920. HOLLAND. NETHERLANDS.

RIGHT: “ALPHABET” PAGNE AS A WRAP IN ABIDJAN, IVORY COAST.
WAX PRINT ABC A17394, EYE CATCHING.

T
he design, as bearer of meaning
and dreams, is crucial in wax
print, as are the colours used to
create it. By varying the position
of the dyes on the same print, it
is possible to obtain results that
vary so much they create the illusion of being
different designs.
This ability to play with perception leads to
great economies since, in a factory, a single
plate on two cylinders can produce a series
of visual variations of one design in dozens
of colour combinations.
In terms of the finished product, the desirability
of the colours depends as much on their aes-
thetic quality as on the message they convey.
In Africa, the choice of colour is governed by
social codes, and may characterise a geograph-
ical place or social status. An example of this
can be seen in the pagnes that are considered
“sombre”, whose base colours are reds and
brown. They are worn by grieving women of
the Krou and Akan people from Ivory Coast
and Ghana, whereas wax prints with a white
background are chosen at the end of a period
DIRECTORY 8
COLOURS
of mourning, as a sign of thanksgiving, among In the ABC design A17394 “Eye catching”,
the Nzema from Bassam; the Asante also wear printed on damask in the “prestige” range, it is
these “white pagnes” for the funeral ceremony possible to perceive a whole range of subtle
of a very old person to whom God has given details in the colour variations, such as design
the time to truly fulfil their life on Earth. Among layering, the contrasts between marbled crack-
the colour combinations, red and yellow is the ing and solid flatness, and bold colour associa-
most popular. Developed by the Dutch manu- tions that make up the uniqueness of wax print.
facturer Ankersmit and distributed successfully An update of the classic The Eye 387613 by
among the Igbo people of Nigeria, it has pro- Brown Fleming, created in 1901, invites observ-
gressively won over the whole of West Africa. ers to look this one hundred year-old design
The singularity of this colour combination is “straight in the eye”, a design whose ability to
that is covers the entirety of the design and attract remains intact.
leaves no white areas. The process called “solid
blocking” guarantees a powerful intensity in
the colours. In contrast with the most popular
dyes that are shared by all, the off-colours are
a less common choice and today provide an
alternative that allows women, in particular
the wealthier ones living in the capital cities,
to stand out from the crowd. By restyling the
old classics with new colours, wax print brands
can display their modernity without upset-
ting traditional female taste. And clearly, the
different colouring also gives a new lease of
life to the designs.
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