Asante Hightimers and the Fashionable Display

The article begins by introducing the reader to a certain category of women in Ghana's Ashanti Region which are chosen preman. A preman, which in English translates to playman or playboy, is a very expensive type of woman. She wants to exist seen at every social occasion dressed gorgeously in the latest most fashionable styles. The article then explores the relationship between the flamboyantly stylish beliefs of the preman and the long-established Asante cultural practice of potawa, visual and verbal assertions of superior status.

Hightimers and Asante Competitive Brandish

Funerals are at the heart of the Asante life. Fridays and Saturdays are dedicated to the observance of customary funeral rites. Towns and villages throughout the Ashanti Region are filled with men and women dressed in mourning ensembles made of red, black, and brown textiles. These funerals constitute totalizing events. This refers to events that impact on nearly every dimension of social life. These funeral events join bully numbers of extended family, friends and colleagues and are considered high-visibility occasions or fashion showcases where one will encounter prestigious textiles sewn into the ensembles worn. It is at these events that yous discover a loftier concentration of preman, sometimes they even attend grand funerals of consummate strangers to take the largest possible audience.

Imporance of Dressing Well in Asante

The Asante are always concerned with dressing well as a means of gaining social prestige. In the Asante Region'south capital, Kumasi, there is an ongoing sense of social accountability maintained past regular face to confront interaction because the city is "similar one big village". This adds a strong social pressure to dress well and often across their means.

There are terms coined by the Ashanti to refer to women as fashionable not-stylish women. "O pe laif" is used to compliment women who dresses fashionably while the reverse, "o ye atetekwaa" is regarded equally an insult and means the woman doesn't like to dress well all the time. There is besides pepee which refers to a person who doesn't dress well because of extreme frugality.

Special Significance of African-impress Cloth

Women of the Ashanti Region participate in a unified system of value in respect to ensemble fabric and fashion. Women'southward ensemble fabric are cleaved into two basic categories ntoma (cloth) and fabric. Ntoma is an umbrella term for three highly valued textiles; kente, adinkra, a cotton wool material stamped with symbolic designs, and a mill produced fabric known as African-print cloth with symbolic imagery. The term material refers to all other manufacturing plant made fabrics aside from African-print fabric.

Relationship between Fabric and Ensemble

At that place is a disctinction of value between the two categories of ensemble textile, ntoma and cloth. Ntoma fabrics are used but for women's prestigious ensembles while materials are relegated to Western-mode ensembles comprised of dresses or skirts and tops. "A woman's selection from among these 3 categories depends on the occasion and on her stage of life".

African-print Cloth as Women'due south Wealth

The accumulation and wearing of prestigious African-impress material is considered emblematic of female maturity and financial well-being. Due to its historical value as a circulated commodity and form of currency, cloth is regarded as a form of wealth.

Women's Material Wealth and the Asante Display Imperative

Women's dress in the Ashanti Region begins receiving scrutiny one time she reaches adulthood, marries, and bears children. If a adult female fails to clothing good-quality African-print cloth ensembles, she is laughed at or ridiculed. Most women are familiar with the electric current marketplace value of African-impress cloth and tin differentiate between prestigious cloth and cheaper grades of locally produce cloth. The women expect men to provide gifts of cloth and clothing to aid them keep up their appearance, and the women often spend a meaning pct of their income on it as well. According to Asante women, "A good husband must endeavour to help his wife learn good-quality African-print fabric".

Fashion equally Status Seeking Display

Stylish new styles develop and spread rapidly throughout Kumasi. Currently, there are ii categories of kaba ensembles; unproblematic and fanciful. Simple styles are modest and ladylike. The women use better quality cloth for these styles because they will remain in fashion for a long period of fourth dimension. Fanciful styles are more distinctive and intricate. Less expensive wax-print material is used for these relative short lived styles.

Fanciful styles are symbolic of a adult female's wealth because they are a lot more than expensive to sew due to the intricate detailing and expensive decorative materials. As well, it symbolized a adult female'south wealth because they are willing to spend more money on an ensemble that will be curt-lived.

Along with ensembles, a woman's ideal torso shape is valued in the Ashanti Region. A plump, rounded woman is considered visible evidence of a woman's inner state, indicating wealth, a good matrimony, and a peaceful state of mind.

Stylish Display and the Controversial Preman

Not all women in the Ashanti Region participate in dressing extravagantly. Some view it equally existence wasteful and a brunt, not a status-seeking opportunity. Others view preman as a scandalous blazon of person with revealing necklines and slit skirts. Wearing revealing clothes leads others to criticize premans because they carry similar prostitutes.

Determination

As Ghana's economy worsened, women's conquering of African-print cloth became limited. By 2007, a new cheaper version of African-print cloth from China enabled women to go along wearing fashionable African-print cloth.

Condition and Dress

Textbook stated that "the concept of way relies on people wanting to clothes similar other people, or more

precisely to emulate others though dress" (including vesture, shoes, accessories, and hairstyle). We smoothly accept the advent of respectable fashion pioneers who article of clothing and attach some new pieces ahead of tendency. And, nosotros endeavor to find its identical items in gild to receive benefits (rising social status) from reflecting their lifestyle to our ain. But, once your fashion friend, then to phone call a mode competitor, appears with the 'center of tendency' items, you may experience jealous to his/her ownership or anxious almost taken status as a mode leader. Thorstein Veblen's classic theory of conspicuous consumption suggests that every person appeal ane'southward status through visible testify of their affordability of luxury goods. Fashion, what you clothing occasionally, talks your condition, the position in a social bureaucracy.

In the history of mode, one's cognition knowing advisable wear gains social reputation as a professional person at certain field. So if yous want to be successful, yous take to dress accordingly, such every bit wearing adapt and tie to business interviews. But, at recent business scene, wearing inappropriately oft earns

respect from the public. Recent Harvard University research which published 2013 and discussed about Red

Sneaker Effect states that wearing appropriately is incorrect way to get alee of life. Other study based on this Harvard written report finds out that a person who wears T-shirt and jeans and has a beard look more than confident and successful than one wears suit and tie. This is because of irresolute occupational majority and minority ratio. At the beginning of 20^th century, only about five percent of Us population engaged in tech business concern while majority was factory worker and farmer. Adapt and tie represented his social status that no one else has. Merely, now office jobs are most common occupation, and people don't receive any special impression past whom wearing business attire. On the other mitt, by increasing numbers of successful entrepreneurship in tech field, self-made millionaire at domicile-base chore who does non need to wear adjust and tie represent current confident and successful individual. Here, ironical flip of 'fashion talks condition' exists.