Existing comment:
Women: Self-Fashioning through Jewelry
In today's Senegal . . . gold jewellery, luxury cloth and regal conduct are still the ideals of beauty. . . . . Beauty is seen as a kind of goodness.
-- Hudita Nura Mustafa, anthropologist
The Art of African Fashion (1998), pg. 36
Women play a significant role in designing and commissioning ensembles. Men typically create pieces to order. Designing jewelry operates within a patronage system in which relationships between the male goldsmiths and their largely female clientele are developed over time and through countless conversations and negotiations. A woman's need to produce a lasting personal impression while drawing on a collective history is at the core of this system.
Women tap into local history and shape Senegalese fashion, politics, and culture according to their own priorities and interests. A woman's self-representation is also crucial to her financial and social success. Such achievement is built through her connection to other women, to families, and to her husband, as well as her jewelry and the way in which she comports herself. If she is dressed well and wearing expensive or fashionable jewelry, people will understand that she is cared for and well-connected. She is demonstrating sañse -- on the cutting edge of fashion and etiquette.
Beauty in Senegal is typically demonstrated through good manners, reserved behavior, generosity, cleanliness, attention to detail, careful delineation of one's hairdo, and finely wrought jewelry that is both aesthetically recognizable and demonstrates a woman's individuality. Through her complex, astonishing, and creative appearance, a Senegalese woman can participate in long-standing local campaigns for prestige and respectability to claim a place in a global city like Dakar. |