Aicha Haidara
My thesis explores the designing of a collection of customizable clothing inspired by the water spirit Mama Wata. Through this collection, I created designs that are easily adaptable and appealing to the African diaspora using traditional African making methods and materials. The techniques used to create these works include beading, embroidery and strip weaving. This collection also looks at the concepts of duality and transformation that are associated with Mama Wata. I created a series of seven garments and two of the top designs are reversible and each side carries its own meaning. To enable the customization of my clothing line, the key materials used are plain white and striped cotton fabric – the latter was woven by me. I wove red, white and yellow cotton yarns in the tabby weave to construct the stripe panel which I later sewed together to create the cloth. Red symbolizes the death and destruction that Mama Wata can bring on as well as the heat, physicality, power and masculine energy. The white represents beauty, creation, new life, water, wealth, spirituality and feminine energy. Those colours are also associated with her duality as she possesses both positive and negative qualities. To bring in the idea of wealth and riches, I included yellow in my woven cloth as gold can be a sacrificial item to Mama Wata. To show the idea of abundance, I based the shell embroidery on the Ghanaian Adinkra symbol for abundance.
