SWAGGA : The Relentless Quests Towards Power Dressing
Swag is to fashion what negative space is to architecture. It can be perceived as bad in its essence but can serve an aesthetic function which makes featured lines pop. As a social construct, it brings communities together while it holds the power to segregate.
Beyond the conservative approach of styles and forms, swag is the 'Je-ne-sais-quoi' which drives borderline personalities on the edge of conventions. It narrows the gaps between the Self and its contrasted expressions.
While swag finds its roots in the shimmery dialogue between the I and the Self, it subjugates the restrictive moral compass to streamline social norms. While style dictates what is supposed to be acceptable, it also puts the lens on what must be hidden from the Eye.
It is in the name of swag that Yoruba women adorn from head to toe with a gelee (head-tie), buba (blouse) and wrappa (wrapped scarf); Then, they give themselves the power to transform from Superwoman to Superqueens. In Yoruba culture, cloth and wealth merge seamlessly.
As a common social practice, Nigerian Ladies give names to their selected cloth as a way to broadcast the mood of the day : the adopted style turns into a stylish validating message addressed by queens to their communities of pairs. It's interesting to see how the labelled cloth turns into a contextual brand, unspokenly slayed but silently understood by society. As a matter of style, textile becomes a sacred language, felt by all, understood by few and selectively voiced.
When modern costumes erect as social status’ accessories, they carry the dual force of raising-or-deeming society’s levels of validation. They also hold the sacrificial power of feeding dramatic narratives. In 2018, Rania Youssef, an Egyptian actress attended the closing event for the 40th Cairo International Film festival in a glamorous black ensemble. The selected outfit was a black leotard with a sheer black overlay. While the top layer was floor length, it displayed some beading. It was mostly see-through and revealed her legs. Worn with a high neck, it was sublimed with a leotard dipped a bit lower. Part of her collarbone was visible through the overlay. It was also sleeveless. While the gown met the ‘swag effect’, it didn’t create unanimity in Egypt where few conservatives sued her as they claimed her dress code to be ‘a call for debauchery’. The actress declared during her trial that ‘she would nothave worn the dress if she had known it would cause such contention’. After apologizing on all possible platforms, charges have been withdrawn.
This illustrates how much fashion is an expression by itself. It's a roaming signal which ignites appeal or fuels hatred. It leads me to think about the tight implication which stands behind clothing and dress code languages: The wearer becomes the messenger while the adopted style connects with its audience to simultaneously address the outsiders and subscribers of one’s cultural codes.
Rania Youssef at the 40th Cairo International Film festival
While Ghana youth recently celebrated 'apuskeleke' as a fashion craze (the mini skirt/dress trend), girls in such attire were perceived as 'indecently clothed'. The throwback aesthetic trending in global fashion avenues led those African female millennials to be insulted and hooted at in public (generally by men). Often assimilated as 'Sugar daddies' girls, 'apuskeleke' urban tribes became the non-consensual victims of the fashion trend hyped by global TV networks. As it only takes visual dexterity to make ‘indecency’ statements, it is interesting to notice how communities evelise what’s considered as appealing or intimidating by the opposite sex. Needless to say that swag is an external reflection of what’s happening within. It also finds its deepest expression in the dialectic between what's happening around and inside us.
Suffice it to say that swag carries a neutral nature which is gendarized only once meeting outsiders’ reactions; It stands as a visual feast to be liked or loathed. As the conservative perceptions of style hold the power to turn ready-to-wear etiquettes into nuclear weapons of unrest-then-arrest, a paramount question actually remains : HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?
From Nigerian glittering wedding scenes to the urban streets of Accra, swag carries multiple expressions. Whether observed in Nigerian women’s gelees or in their husbands’ traditional Ankara attires, a standardized definition of swag prevails. In both scenarios, the concept stands as a reflection of social and moral identities. When worn as a sub-cultural fashion style, swag makes the world of fashion spin. It drives individuals out of the ratiometrics of reason to outcast ‘the non-traditional’ from the disputable spheres of decency.
While our Ancient Continent is fueled by a teen-aged spirit, it is only natural for its fashion trends to be nothing less than eclectic. Seeking their owned singular expressions, the Youth and the Elders meet in the same streets to cultivate the codes they’ve both been influenced by.
When traditions meet modernity, a shift happens : more shoulders, more skin, more neck, less hands, more legs, more breast...Well, like in any cake recipe, we can’t all agree on the perfect equilibrium to be kept in a composition which will have a sweet taste for some and a bitter one for others. Though swag’s New Age’ dynamic balances minimalism with maximalism, it remains an experimental quantifying quest for positive self-image. Beyond the borders of conservatism, swag poetically disrupts and blends communities together.
At a time when Europe tuned into the first syllabus of its contemporary fashion language, swag was monitored like an obsession by a police of its unconscious social making : ‘the Fashion Merchants’. Rose Bertin was one of them. As Marie Antoinette’s personal stylist, she became an ambassador of swag for the aristocracy. She lighted up the weight of silhouettes with less voluminous ‘baskets’. From the launch of new athleisure styles for aristocracy’s outdoor activities to the rise of the evolved mousseline dress version, she observed women's life to design silhouettes conform with women's daily activities. Called the 'Minister of fashion', she is the one who birthed the pregnancy dress trend. At a time when fashion trading was only the matter of few selected males, Rose Bertin imposed her business acumen as a catalyst in the birth of European swag. Preceding today’s fashion editors, 'Fashion merchants’, dictated in royal courts the fashion of the days. Back then, it was the royalty which influenced the trends which spread across kingdoms streets.
Today’s fashion influencers’ power is held at the fingertips of global digital communities. While they still forecast our daily doses of swag, they dictate the trends to be worn on our sleeves. Imposing a glass-tubed mercury barometer of fashion led to creating a capitalistically Re/Op-pressive pulse of what's in and 'out of fashion'.
The threatening power of personal expression through style should not undermine fashion shapeshifting language which is heard by all and misunderstood only by those who can’t relate. As Swag is a 1.3 trillion dollars intimidating industry, it sometimes erects as THE threat which outcasts the most sacred members of societies into the realms of indecency.
It took a new face mask trend and an unprecedented pandemic to shift global fashion rhythms from the relentless ride of the MUST-HAVE to the free flowing state of the MUST BE. It is hard to believe that swag can be sieged as it's a free social contract which feeds itself from anything galvanizing it. As a self-affirmation statement, style paves the way to individual optimism while it keeps wide-open the doors of public outrage.
In an attempt to define swag, I like to see fashion as a socially engaging path; It can turn the most defiant desires for style escapism into journeys driving urban tribes away from a dull and pervading sense of ‘normality’. As for where swag is heading next, I am as uncertain as the polarizing force by which it flows; I like to see the dialectic of power dressing as an endless voyage nurtured by the trends it naturally births. It can flutter as far as Afropolitanism goes, as your swag is your story!