Bobby Kolade: Ugandan fashion has been taken over by Western styles

Bobby Kolade thinks that tradition Ugandan fashion has been “taken over” by Western styles.

The fashion designer – who hails from Sudan – is urging others to get on board with the idea of second-hand clothing but admits that the clothes he receives are often unsuitable for the heat in his home country.

He said: “Choosing to wear second hand clothes means a lot of choice and it’s affordable, but culturally it’s a problem. Is there anything left that’s Ugandan? [The country has] been overtaken by Western styles. I open a bale of clothes and all the armpits on the white shirts are stained with sweat. Many people in the Global North assume there are poor Africans running around naked and in need of these clothes. That idea has to change.”

Bobby – who studied graphic design in Berlin before going on to found his now-defunct self-titled fashion label – went on to add that the market of fashion is “big business” and advised that “people who make a lot of money” from clothing companies “seek therapy” and ask who they really are benefiting in the process.

He told RedBull.com: “This is a huge business, and there are people making a lot of money. In an ideal world, the CEOs of [fashion retail] companies would seek therapy and ask themselves, “Is what we’re doing beneficial only to the Global North?” Then we’d be talking about colonialist consumption patterns – that people in wealthier countries can only buy cheap clothing because they’re exploiting people at the production and disposal ends.