Fashion is generated by disparate sources, and one of the surest, if least obvious, is television news. Between April 26, when the South African elections began, and May 6, when Nelson Mandela won, I watched the nightly news without the sound to see what sort of style elements were penetrating our psyches.What a delight it is to report that the intricate African stylishness, and expertise with line, drapery, texture, inventiveness, and detail that outclasses that of the French, will now become more evident to Americans through the nattiness and taste of President Mandela.
He is so stylish! He looks handsome in Western suits and ties. And his high-collared patterned shirts, buttoned to the neck, beautifully cut, look at once monarchical and grandfatherly. The shirt he wore for an interview with Peter Jennings, with its black yoke and its black-and-gray stripes, not only was modern but also looked perfectly suited to the leopard skin and beaded crown he later donned in a bow to history.
Camouflage has been creeping into fashion in the last two years. And indeed, one of the most prevalent groups on the news recently has been the army: the South African Army, the right-wing South African Nationalist Army, the Bosnian Army, the United Nations peacekeeping forces, the Rwandan armies, the Tanzanian Army, the Haitian Army, the Israeli Army. And all of them wear the most exotic array of camouflage patterns.
Some people will undoubtedly consider it frivolous to mention fashion and killing in the same sentence. Yet warrior fashion is an ancient and elaborate tradition, and nowhere is it more treasured than in Africa.
During the Somali conflict last year, for example, pictures of a Somali warlord's teenage gunmen suddenly flashed onto the television screen. Dressed in faded camouflage shirts and pants, probably army castoffs, they wore long scarfs around their necks and waist cinchers (the kind women in the United States wore in the late 1950s). Where they had gotten the waist cinchers no one seemed to know, but the image of teenage boys brandishing rifles and wearing this odd, Madonna-ish feminine accoutrement was terrifying, and firmly in the tradition of cross-dressing warriors in tribal Africa, Asia, and North America.
In a similar but less spectacular way, a teenage Rwandan gunman appeared on the screen recently wearing faded, obviously cast-off camouflage, a long scarf he must have made around his neck, and a beige, monklike pointy hood on his head. He flailed into camera range, somehow managing to brandish two sticks and a rifle, a crazed look in his eyes. It was a horribly stylish and most chillingly effective outfit.
[Ed.: The following year, Archbishop Desmond Tutu criticized President Mandela for wearing colorful shirts. "He is so elegant in his suits," said Tutu. "I do not like him in his shirts."]
