Paper short abstract:

Fashion is an important feature of Greater Dakar. Examining the interconnectedness between everyday fashion practices and the city's social spaces offers additional perspectives on the making of urban identities.

Paper long abstract:

In Senegal, fashion and the presentation of the bodily self play a decisive role in the configuration and negotiation of identities. Fashion as part of material culture and expression of sociocultural and aesthetic practices is an omnipresent phenomenon in Dakar and shared by all spectra of society. Especially textile markets and tailor shops function as social spaces, and the streets of Dakar resemble a gigantesque catwalk. Moreover, life cycle and religious ceremonies provide an opportunity for the public display of new fabrics and styles. The cityscape and its inhabitants have been shaped for centuries by translocal and transnational encounters, references and imaginations. While the city of Dakar is a source of inspiration for tailors and designers, the so-called traditional robes are subject to change as people meet the claims of urban lifestyles. The frequent and often excessive changing of one's clothing, which is widely shared via social media, as well as the shaping and styling of the body are popular activities connected to prestige and social mobility. I argue that analyzing the interplay between everyday fashion practices as both spectacular and ordinary and the urban environment can foster new perspectives on old dichotomies like local/global or traditional/modern and provide us with useful approaches to trace the formation of urban subjects.