Fashioning Dakar’s Urban Society: Sartorial Code-Mixing in Senegal

Abstract

Abstract Fashion constitutes a vital part of material culture and is an expression of sociocultural and aesthetical practices in Senegal. Manifold features have shaped sartorial styles for centuries, with sartorial mastery interweaving local techniques and global trends up to today. Tied to a long history of bodily adornment and of the importance of textiles, fashionable clothing plays a crucial role in indicating status and various forms of belonging. The widely used concepts of sañse and métissage refer to the centrality of fashion in everyday life and to the cultural tendency to integrate and combine various ideas, materials and styles. In this paper, I suggest that fashion in urban contexts not only serves as a means of and for social distinction but also works as a social adhesive when analysing fashion through the prism of métissage. Hence, ‘sartorial code-mixing’ has become a decisive feature of urban fashion and, like language and music, has a role in the formation of an open-minded and steadily growing urban society beyond polarizing tendencies.