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Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the analysis of Katutura Fashion Week (KFW) - held since 2019 in Windhoek, Namibia - through an approach, methodologically based on semiotics of culture, that perspectives a fashion event as a powerful tool for shaping and reconciling identities through clothing.

Paper long abstract:

It is from the emblematic township of Katutura - so called in Otjiherero as "the place where we don't want to live"(Pendleton, 1994) because, in the colonial past, indigenous people were forcibly displaced there - that the concept of KFW emerges in the spirit of its founder, Dennis Hendricks. A talented entrepreneur, high level athlete and model by profession, a "township boy", Hendricks embodies young Namibia and sets out from Katutura to access the backstage of culture by enhancing Namibia's potential in the Fashion sector. Namibia has a rich cultural heritage and diversity inspiring contemporary design and KFW becomes a catwalk of creations reinventing the Odelela skirt, colorful Nama patchwork, Kavango bead sets or the iconic Herero dress. The fashion week concept extends to innovative practices and becomes a tool for shaping and reconciling identities through clothing. Fashion expresses a worldview, tells the story of a society, and becomes "a metronome of cultural development"(Lotman, 1993). African fashion has memory and KFW is an example. Reevaluating the general context of its tradition, African fashion reappropriates its own cultural consciousness and invent new paradigms (Mudimbe, 1941) giving the key to understand possible forms of cultural relationship shaping the future. Change agent, incorporating cultural heritage with a global worldview, KFW is committed to rising awareness of ethnic interactions and cultural diversity, including body diversity, and aspires to (re)build a new Katutura as "the place where we want to live", a unifying place of a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural nation.