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Kanga Textile Design, Education, and Production in contemporary Dar es

Salaam, Tanzania

Article · January 2016

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University of Nebraska - Lincoln
DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings Textile Society of America

2016

Kanga Textile Design, Education, and Production

in contemporary Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
MacKenzie Moon Ryan PhD.
mmryan@rollins.edu

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Crosscurrents: Land, Labor, and the Port. Textile Society of America’s
15th Biennial Symposium. Savannah, GA, October 19-23, 2016. 424

Kanga Textile Design, Education, and Production in contemporary Dar es

Salaam, Tanzania
MacKenzie Moon Ryan, PhD
mmryan@rollins.edu

While today kanga textiles are commonly thought of as bearers of east African or Swahili
culture, this industrially produced textile emerged from a complex history of global trade
networks serving local consumer demands. Worn widely throughout the east African region, this
textile emerged as a fashionable garment preferred by women along the Swahili Coast of east
Africa in the late nineteenth century. Shortly after its introduction in 1886, these inexpensive
printed textiles became favored consumer goods throughout the wider region, stretching from
present-day southern Somalia, throughout Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Malawi,
and into eastern DRC and northern Mozambique. (Closely related cloths were even adopted in
the Comoros Islands and Madagascar).

Known as kanga in Tanzania and leso in Kenya, these textiles display colorful, graphic designs
and are most often worn by women as wrapper. These textiles are ubiquitous throughout the east
African region, as staple items of women’s attire and household use. Kanga textiles are the first
thing a newborn baby is wrapped in and the last thing a deceased woman or child is shrouded in.
They protect adolescent girls while undergoing initiation ceremonies and are given to brides at
kitchen parties to celebrate their upcoming weddings. Kanga textiles gained increased
international fame when an Obama kanga design was produced upon the president’s election in
2008 and a second commemorative Obama kanga was produced in summer 2013 to mark the
American president’s visit to Tanzania.

Kanga textiles are sold in pairs, and as mass-produced, industrially printed textiles, they have
retained adherence to a standard composition: a central graphic image, called mji in Swahili, or
town; surrounded by a wide, continuous border, or pindo, completed by a Swahili phrase, called
jina or name.
Crosscurrents: Land, Labor, and the Port. Textile Society of America’s
15th Biennial Symposium. Savannah, GA, October 19-23, 2016. 425

Urafiki Textile Mill

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
October 2011
Photograph by James Ryan

Swahili phrases often reproduce familiar proverbs, provincial wisdom, benevolent blessings, and
at times, defensive warnings. Some women use these phrases to communicate with family
members, friends, and rivals. Designs range from decorative floral motifs, repeating geometric
designs, to everyday objects and desirable commodities. Women carefully select each pair of
kanga textiles for their applicability in saying, desirable motif, flattering color combination, and
quality of material and printing.

This paper seeks to answer the questions: How have kanga textiles been designed throughout the
past? How are kanga designers educated today? What new demands are contributing to
contemporary kanga production?

During the colonial era, kanga were designed on the specification of expert locals but
manufactured abroad and functioned largely as imported commodities. From ca. 1880s to the late
1960s, manufacturers first in Europe and subsequently in Asia industrially wove cloth and
printed designs to create kanga. Shippers handled transport from place of manufacture to Swahili
coastal port cities, where wholesalers and retailers received the finished textiles. Distributors in
the form of merchant-converter firms or trading houses managed all of this coordination—they
commissioned new textiles for sale and distributed the final product to sellers in east Africa.
They did so upon the specialty knowledge, advice, and skills of experts in Swahili coastal port
cities: resident Indian merchants, who knew how to meet the ever-changing demands of kanga
cloth consumers, east African women.
Crosscurrents: Land, Labor, and the Port. Textile Society of America’s
15th Biennial Symposium. Savannah, GA, October 19-23, 2016. 426

K.G. Peera (aka Miwani Mdogo) with his son Ukera K. Peera and his suitcase full of kanga sketches
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
11 November 2011
Photograph by MacKenzie Moon Ryan

European and subsequently Asian merchant-converter firms hired resident Indian

representatives, sellers, and designers during the colonial era. Kassamali Gulamhussein (K. G.)
Peera (b. 1911/12 – d. 2011) is one example of a kanga designer and seller active in Zanzibar
and Dar es Salaam; he canvased east African women’s tastes, created new kanga designs, and
finally sold the finished product within his family’s business. Resident Indian merchants
provided the crucial linchpin between east African consumers and European then Asian
manufacturers and distributors; they placed orders for, designed, and sold new kanga, relying on
their intimate knowledge of market tastes.

New domestic factories were founded during the independence era, beginning with Tanganyika’s
declaration of independence in 1961 and its subsequent union with Zanzibar to form Tanzania in
1964. In 1967, Tanzania began pursuing a socialized system of self-reliance, called Ujamaa, and
established protectionist policies to support the fledgling domestic textile industry. For example,
Urafiki or Friendship Textile Mill was a joint investment between newly independent Tanzania
and socialist China in the late 1960s.
Crosscurrents: Land, Labor, and the Port. Textile Society of America’s
15th Biennial Symposium. Savannah, GA, October 19-23, 2016. 427

Urafiki Textile Company

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
October 2011
Photograph by MacKenzie Moon Ryan

Since then, cotton cultivation, cloth production and textile design have coalesced in the port city
and financial hub of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, though other factories exist in regional cities.
Textile factories processed cotton, spun thread, and wove plain-weave cloth, in addition to
bleaching, washing, and mercerizing. Copper plates then rotary screens printed designs to suit
the local market, and freshly printed designs are heated to ensure colorfast quality. Uncut kanga
cloth are piled in bales awaiting cutting, baling, and packaging for shipping.

With an emphasis on self-reliance, new nationalized vertically integrated textile mills were
responsible for generating new designs in-house. Archival photos and interviews suggest that
East African men and women in collaboration with Chinese designers were responsible for new
designs. An example of an independence-era designer is Professor Hashim A. Nakanoga, who
was employed by Urafiki for nine years from 1971-1980 as a textile surface designer. Trained in
Fine Arts from Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, he received a Diploma in Textile
Design in 1982 from the Scottish College of Textiles in Edinburgh. He served as professor of art
at the University of Dar es Salaam from 1979-2007. He was part of a celebratory generation of
designers where most everything reflected Tanzania, national pride, and self-reliance. He
continues to take on special kanga commissions, such as the one here that celebrates the
University of Dar es Salaam’s 50th anniversary in 2011.
Crosscurrents: Land, Labor, and the Port. Textile Society of America’s
15th Biennial Symposium. Savannah, GA, October 19-23, 2016. 428

Kanga design by Professor Hashim A. Nakanoga

Collected by author in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
October 2011
Photograph by MacKenzie Moon Ryan

When I visited Urafiki in October 2011, I was able to briefly view their kanga swatch storage
and pattern archive, which documents almost fifty years of Urafiki production.

Kanga swatch storage and pattern archive

Urafiki Textile Company
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
October 2011
Photographs by James Ryan
Crosscurrents: Land, Labor, and the Port. Textile Society of America’s
15th Biennial Symposium. Savannah, GA, October 19-23, 2016. 429

At the same time of my site visits, the jointly owned and operated Chinese-Tanzania Friendship
Textile mill was actively seeking a private investor to buy the majority share. To that end,
Urafiki installed a kanga showroom to display their products professionally. In December 2011,
ownership transferred to a private Chinese company, and I was no longer able to gain access to
the mill, pattern archive, or showroom.

Kanga Showroom
Urafiki Textile Company
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
October 2011
Photograph by James Ryan

Though Urafiki has remained in production for fifty years, Tanzania’s socialist policies which
continued into the 1980s almost spelled the end of the domestic textile industry. By 1985, the
government adopted liberalizing economic policies and opened its borders to imports. In this
new era, domestic textile mills had to compete with imports primarily from India and China.
Cost-cutting measures at local firms meant that designers were now freelance artists, who sold
their designs to all major textile manufacturers, both home and abroad. Mr. Furahi Kasika, Jr. is
an example of a liberalizing-era designer. He described himself as self-taught and under-
employed by Urafiki in 1990s and 2000s, and still hand-draws and paints his designs and sells
them to the highest bidder.
Crosscurrents: Land, Labor, and the Port. Textile Society of America’s
15th Biennial Symposium. Savannah, GA, October 19-23, 2016. 430

Hand-drawn kanga design by Mr. Furahi Kasika, Jr.

Collected by author in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
October 2011
Photograph by MacKenzie Moon Ryan

Kanga design has again changed in response to the digital world, where in the contemporary era,
designers use computer-generated patterns to create new kanga designs rapidly. Mr. Vijay
Patankar is an example of a contemporary designer—employed by Afritex, a subsidiary of
Mohammed Enterprises Ltd (MeTL), he has taken a course in computer-generated pattern design
in India. He immigrated to Dar es Salaam for employment, and he both digitizes hand-drawings
purchased from other designers and creates his own digital designs direct for printing.

Computer-generated kanga design by Mr. Vijay Patankar

Kanga printed by Afritex brand, owned by MeTL (Mohammad Enterprises Ltd.)
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
October 2011
Photograph by MacKenzie Moon Ryan
Crosscurrents: Land, Labor, and the Port. Textile Society of America’s
15th Biennial Symposium. Savannah, GA, October 19-23, 2016. 431

The textile industry in Tanzania today is poised for a major shift. With 80% of all cotton grown
in Tanzania currently exported and a looming ban on secondhand clothing slated to take effect in
2019, the government is again focused on supporting local production, manufacturing, and
consumption. 1 With imported kanga currently undercutting those locally produced, and because
domestic firms are increasingly foreign-owned and operated, one question has been on the minds
of Tanzanian educators, development agents, and politicians: How can kanga textiles be
reclaimed for Tanzania?

Today, educators are making a concerted effort to train textile professionals at university,
technical, and specialist institutions to support and sustain a prosperous textile sector. Institutions
in and beyond Dar es Salaam are creating educational programs to train the next generation of
Tanzanian textile experts. They are investing in human capital to avoid increasing reliance on
foreign expertise. Training includes textile engineering, or the processing of local cotton into
woven cloth, textile technologies, the design of woven and knitted patterns, thread count, and a
fabric’s properties, textile surface design, the creation of surface patterns to be printed on cloth,
and finally fashion design, creating desirable clothing for both local and international
consumption.

The University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) offers a BS in Textile Engineering and BS in Textile
Design and Technology within the College of Engineering and Technology (CoET). Their
express desire to provide skilled experts to manage and run vertically integrated textile factories
in Tanzania.2 These degrees were launched in 2011-2012 with assistance from the Gatsby
Charitable Foundation and Trust.3 To formally train textile surface designers, the University of
Dar es Salaam also offers a BA in Fine and Performing Arts, which teaches textile surface design
as part of its three-year course and focuses on kanga design, under the direction of Professors
Elias Jengo and Hashim A. Nakanoga. The Institute of Arts and Culture Bagamoyo, 40 miles
north of Dar es Salaam, offers a diploma in arts and teaches three courses in textile surface
design, where kanga functions as a core subject.

Beyond textile engineering, technology, and surface design, the Vocational Education and
Training Authority (VETA) offers a two-year diploma in Textile and Fashion Design in Dar es
Salaam. This technical school has hired retired University of Dar es Salaam Professors Nakanoga
and Jengo as consultants to advise of complimentary courses. Students learn sewing, weaving,
knitting techniques, pattern making, as well as drawing, painting, and design. A unique feature of
this program offers students a placement or internship in vertically integrated factories; there,
they receive on-the-job training to aid in the creation of desirable textiles and garments. This
program serves as a bridge to the growing fashion sector in Tanzania—which includes fashion
designers, photographers, models, stylists, journalists, and production teams. These “catwalk
fashions” cater to an elite minority but also re-established locally produced kanga cloth and
clothing as fashionable. These catwalk styles are aspirational to the vast majority of Tanzanians,
but set the stage for a renewed interest in kanga cloth by young, urban professionals.

1
“Why East Africa Wants to Ban Secondhand Clothes,” BBC News, 2 March 2016,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-35706427.
2
Professor Leonard Mwaikambo, Coordinator of Faculty, interview 27 October 2011.
3
The Textile Engineering course welcomed an inaugural class of 12 and the Textile Design and Technology course
welcomed 19; each had a goal of 15 students each.
Crosscurrents: Land, Labor, and the Port. Textile Society of America’s
15th Biennial Symposium. Savannah, GA, October 19-23, 2016. 432

Perhaps the most visible annual promotion and celebration of Tanzanian fashion comes in the
form of Swahili Fashion Week, which has be held annually in Dar es Salaam since 2007. A brief
introduction to three Tanzanian fashion designers—all of whom use kanga as their primary
source material—will demonstrate how the fashion sector has expanded in the last decade. Kemi
Kalikawe founded Naledi Fashion House in 2008 and regularly launches new collections at
Swahili Fashion Week. While she continues to design, she also launched the non-profit Naledi
Fashion Institute in 2013 to help train and apprentice young designers. She has worked with
organizations such as Alliance Française, British Council, Goethe Institute, and the Tanzanian
Gatsby Trust, but founded this fashion incubator to provide a consistent, reliable and homegrown
point of entry for young designers to gain knowledge, skills, and the network to effectively
contribute to the burgeoning Tanzanian fashion industry.

Similarly, Shellina Ebrahim began as a fashion design in 2008, showing collections at multiple
Swahili Fashion Weeks. In 2013 she founded Tanzania’s Fashion & Style Magazine, or FAS. As
editor-in-chief of this digital magazine (though now available in print), Shellina’s entrepreneurial
venture gives testament to the growing professionalization of fashion industry in Tanzania. 4 Her
magazine employs models, photographers, stylists, journalists, and production teams to realize
their content. Based in Dar es Salaam, FAS often features events and celebrities from the city
and uses the streets as backdrop for editorial shoots and reaches a digital readership in excess of
50,000.

Some fashion designers have garnered success both within and beyond Tanzania. Christine
Mhando established the clothing line, Chichia in 2007 and by 2010 had gained fame within
Tanzania. In 2013, her London-based clothing line gained international celebrity when none
other than Beyoncé wore one of her tops while on tour. Through this simple selection, Beyoncé
introduced Chichia—and kanga—to a worldwide audience.

Still other designers beyond Tanzania use kanga as their starting point and have raised the profile
of this otherwise humble everyday cloth to an international market. Trends in global and ethical
fashion have informed clothing lines such as LaLesso. Founded in 2005 by Olivia Kennaway and
Alice Heusser, LaLesso serves wealthy, conscientious women clients by way Spring/Summer
and Resort collections annually, and enjoys stockists around the world.5 LaLesso is committed to
“transparent, sustainable, eco and ethical production facilities” in their home countries of Kenya
and South Africa, and use kanga patterns in the majority of their designs.6

Similarly, Suno is an clothing line founded by Max Osterweis of New York in 2008. Inspired by
kanga on a trip to Kenya, early collections relied substantially on kanga cloth. Priding itself on
its social responsibility, Suno also serves high-end women clients around the world and have
even dressed Michelle Obama on several occasions.

In conclusion, I’d like to return to the questions I initially posed: How have kanga textiles been
designed throughout the past?

4
Print run of 16,000; 50,000+ digital readers. Shellina Ebrahim, FAS Magazine Print Now in Zanzibar,” Editor’s
note, 16 January 2015, http://fasmagazine.com/editors-letter-january-2015/.
5
USA, Canada, Caribbean, Mexico, Australia, UK, Switzerland, Indonedia, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania,
Burkina Faso, Gabon. “Stockists,” LaLesso website, http://www.lalesso.com/stockists/, accessed 18 October 2016.
6
“The Story,” LaLesso website, http://www.lalesso.com/the-story/, accessed 18 October 2016.
 Crosscurrents: Land, Labor, and the Port. Textile Society of America’s
15th Biennial Symposium. Savannah, GA, October 19-23, 2016. 433

In the colonial-era, kanga were designed on the advice of resident Indian designers and sellers in
communication with textile printers abroad. In the independence-era, kanga were hand-drawn
and painted by employees at domestic textile factories. In the liberalizing-era, kanga were hand-
drawn and painted by freelance artists. In the contemporary-era, kanga were designed digitally
by trained employees at textile factories, mostly foreign-owned and operated.

Secondly, how are kanga designers educated today?

Via BS degrees in textile engineering, BS degrees in textile technologies, BA and diplomas in

textile surface design, and certificates in textile and fashion design.

Finally, what new demands are contributing to contemporary kanga production?

Through fashion catwalk shows, fashion institutes and apprenticeships, fashion publishing, and
fashion clothing lines.

Drawing on kanga designs, textiles and clothing; experience with the contemporary Dar es
Salaam fashion industry; recent interviews with educators and designers; and field and archival
research; this paper argues that kanga cloth is at the center of educational, production,
manufacturing, and employment efforts in contemporary Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

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