Men’s Dashiki Fabric Shirt (Museum Accession Number R6138/1)
This shirt was bought by the Kenyan owner Casbery Omurunga as a plain black button down shirt. He had his tailor add dashiki fabric to the front, shoulders and cuffs, and wore the finished shirt to his nephew’s baptism. Dashiki, called kitenge in Kenya, is a distinctive colourful textile which is popular in East and West Africa and the African diaspora. Traditionally worn as a tunic by both men and women, this shirt is an example of the trend to add elements of kitenge fabric to other clothing. In recent years, the trend has been for assymetrical designs with kitenge fabric on one side of the shirt. Collected by Tony Kalume as part of the Fashioning Africa project.
Creator: Casbury Omurunga
Place: Mtwapa, Kilifi County, Kenya, East Africa, Africa
Date: 2007
