SHENAZ
KHANGA meets Dirndl..
The Khanga, is a colourful fabric similar to kitenge, but lighter, worn by women and occasionally by men throughout the African Great Lakes region. It is a piece of printed cotton fabric, about 1.5 m by 1 m, often with a border along all four sides (called pindo in Swahili), and a central part (mji) which differs in design from the borders.
Khanga:
are often given as gifts to women or among women. The cloth serves as symbolic gifts during marriage ceremonies in Kenya and Tanzania. Kangas are multi-purpose: men wear them and babies are wrapped in them.
Inspired by a bird:
The word 'khanga' originated among buyers of the new designs who needed a way to identify the cloth and chose the Swahili word for the guinea fowl, a bird with magnificent spotty plumage similar to the earliest Khanga designs.
Dirndl:
The dirndl describes a dress with a tight, often low-cut, rectangular or round top (décolleté), a wide skirt set high on the waist, the length of which changes with the prevailing fashion, and an apron. It is worn both at fairs and church fairs in rural areas and at larger folk festivals, such as the Munich Oktoberfest or the Cannstatter Wasen, especially in southern Germany and some Alpine regions. While the wearing of appropriate clothing was not very common at folk festivals in the 1970s, it a. increased very rapidly since the 1990s. Since the 2000s, fashion designers have increasingly taken on the Dirndl theme, with varying results.
Both Khanga and Dirndl together, gives you together the result in the breathtaking beauty of different cultures and people.
From Tanzania to Austria with love
......Stay tuned, more coming soon at SHENAZ......
