Safara fashion show celebrates African designs

It’s worn everywhere from the Senegal to the Ivory Coast and Ghana to Cameroon, but now the wildly colourful, highly patterned West African fabric known as waxprint will be hitting the runway in Ottawa Saturday night.

Considered as much a way of communicating about the wearer as a fundamental dress form in Africa, waxprint, a form of batik, will be the centrepiece of Safara, an African-themed fashion show organized by Ottawa-based designer, Gwen Madiba. Safara is a Senegalese word that means fire.
“In my personal collections, I try to explore African prints and I saw that all over the world at fashion weeks lately, several designers have worked with African prints and celebrities have worn it on the runway,” says Madiba, whose House of Dare label will also present a collection featuring geometric patterns made of waxprint. “Waxprint is really a way of life in Africa, so I wanted to bring designers from Canada and abroad to celebrate that fabric and showcase their collections.”