Those who know me well are most likely aware of a strange, little fetish I have developed over the years. Yes, it’s true, I have an unhealthy obsession with scarves.
I can’t really explain it--it’s a strange little tic. I just love scarves. The way they look and feel and keep you warm and elongate your neck and make you feel momentarily like Audrey Hepburn. For some it’s chocolate, others cigarettes, FOX News, mystic tans or Michael Bublé. What does it for me…scarves!
I have heard the slanderous tongues of those who call them pretentious, others who call them the trimmings of a prude, and still others who claim they are just a second-rate accessory to headbands on Gossip Girl.
Blasphemous fools!
I think they are perfectly lovely.
But, being that I am in northern Mozambique where cold is more or less nonexistent, scarves are about as ridiculous and as nonfunctional as water beds.
What’s a girl to do?
Well, lucky for me, my love and infatuation of scarves has since been projected onto the capulana. In fact, the only thing here that successfully counteracts my loathing of chapas is my love of capulanas.
A capulana, my dear readers, is this beautiful, colorful fabric that women here and in other African countries use to wrap around their waists as a sarong. It is not exclusively used for clothes but also as curtains, table cloths, towels, sheets, head wraps, rags, cloths in which women strap their babies to their backs or bundle up food to cart on their heads. There is an infinite use to the capulana. It truly serves every practical function.
When the Arabs disembarked in Mozambique and began to integrate, they brought with them the capulana, the long rectangular sarong that Muslim women used to wrap around their waist and cover their heads. The Arabs forcefully encouraged African women to adopt this style of dress. And after years and years of this fashion indoctrination the capulana became a part of African women and a part of African culture. Women here came to love the capulana. They took the idea of it and made it their own, adding beautiful, bold colors and designs.
There is a special capulana to commemorate every holiday and celebration--Independence Day, Christmas, Women’s Day, Children’s Day, weddings, elections, rites of initiation. There are also capulanas that commemorate specific people. I have seen capulanas with the faces of Michael Jackson, Obama, Guebueza (the Mozambican President), and even Pope John Paul II graced the beautiful fabric of a capulana. The designs featured on capulanas are as diverse as the capulana itself. There are tie die capulanas, capulanas with stunning African patterns and images, capulanas with random objects like high heels, casseroles, turkeys, cupcakes, maps, and anatomy a la Georgia O’Keefe.
Now, most women here wear the capulana very tightly around their waists to accentuate their derrieres--badonkadonks that would send Beyonce spiraling into a Iago-like state of envy. Always conscious of this, Mozambican women tend to strut especially slow and honey-like when wearing a capulana. Thus, their pace is about equal to a Chinese woman with her feet bound. I have neither the patience nor the frame nor the swagger for this, and my long American legs like to take long American strides. So while I do don the capulana traditionally for various occasions, my site mates and I have taken to buying a capulana and taking them to the tailors for them to make an assortment of other more functional clothes for us--dresses, shorts, pants, shirts, everything!
Because Africa has slowly eviscerated most of the clothes I brought, my entire wardrobe is now essentially all capulana clothes. And I must say, our capulana inventions and designs would make Tim Gunn proud.
Make it work.
Being that capulanas are such a huge part of being a Mozambican woman, folks here adore that we adore capulanas. Whenever I wear something made from capulana, they like to tell me, “Oooh, Margarida, now you are Mozambicana.” It is such an enormous part of the culture here that even Mozambicans equate being Mozambican with the capulana.
So, to those fashion capitals of the world Paris, Milan, New York City I say, suck it. You may have Dior, Versace, and Vera Wang but Mozambique…we’ve got capulanas.
Modeling a little capulanaware. This one is my favorite capulana ever. And yes, I had them make a scarf for me.
My beautiful site mate Erin with one of her lovely capulana creations.
Yes, those are capulana shorts. I wouldn't be caught dead with them in Angoche but they're nice for other places.
A turtle capulana. Hah.
Another one of my favorite capulanas.
Erin and I with our butterfly dresses. A crowd favorite here.
