Fashion as a Political Language

Over the past three centuries, the evolution of cultural fashion trends has frequently revealed an intricate relationship between style and power, not least in the context of colonialism. Fashion has long functioned as a political language, capable of obscuring, unifying, depersonalising, empowering, or excluding the agency of a broad range of individuals and groups.

Anthropologists Jean and John Comaroff argue that the refashioning of colonial subjects both symbolised and propelled the colonial agenda. Across cultures, fashion became a battleground for power, identity, and resistance, reflecting cultural heritage while also serving as a tool to defend against efforts to erase indigenous customs, social structures, and ways of life.

Clothing and Tswana Identity

In the Tswana communities of Botswana and South Africa, colonised by Britain in the late 19^th century, fashion became a tool for asserting control and reshaping local cultures. Western clothing was seen as a symbol of ‘civilisation’ by the colonisers. For the Tswana, traditional garments and textiles, such as woven fabrics, beaded decorations, animal hides, and plant fibres, were integral to expressing cultural identity, social status, and power. These items reinforced authority, unity, and group belonging. When such cultural symbols were erased or hidden, the ability to maintain and exercise power often diminished.

Missionaries and the Fashion of Transformation

British colonial Evangelists saw themselves as executors of transformation and believed that Tswana’s ‘primitive’ societies were defined by their inability to activate change for themselves. In 19th-century religious thought, the human body held deep moral significance as a sacred vessel deserving care and respect. This belief was rooted in Biblical scriptures, such as 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, which stressed the body’s sanctity and its proper treatment according to Christian values. As a result, wearing clothes became a symbol of godliness and an outward sign of one’s acceptance of Christian teachings.

As a result, colonial Evangelists found traditional Tswana garb as too revealing and fixated upon covering African nakedness due its associations with wildness, disorder, and uncleanliness. Driven by their sense of divine duty, they took it upon themselves to change how Tswana communities dressed, believing that adopting European attire would lead to greater acceptance of both Christianity and colonial rule. Clothing thus became a tool for their missionary efforts, as Tswana identity and personhood were increasingly commodified and reshaped to fit colonial ideals.

Challenging Eurocentric Fashion Norms

The English fashion system was deeply gendered and centred around women, whose clothing and accessories served as key indicators of social status and wealth.  In contrast, Tswana culture challenged these long-established Eurocentric notions of gender roles and labour divisions. Contrasted by the rigid English conventions of domesticity and male dependence, the women of Tswana, royals and commoners alike, bore the brunt of physical labour, from building homes to cultivating crops, while their husbands were responsible for making their garments.

Stylistic Differences

Missionaries, unfamiliar with Tswana customs, failed to recognise the subtle markers of status and power in Tswana fashion. Unlike English women’s attire, which visibly displayed wealth through distinct styles and fabric quality, Tswana women lacked immediately apparent and grandiose displays of status and wealth symbols on their bodies. However, this presumption was untrue as Tswana fashion was proxies for social status and power, it is only that the English missionaries’ were unfamiliar with the vernacular to understand it. 

Traditional Attire and Colonial Influence

In Tswana communities, traditional clothing primarily consisted of animal skins and fur, and bronze ornaments with beaded jewellery. Men wore attires called Tshega, which included a fur loincloth and a kaross (sheepskin cloak), while women wore aprons called Khiba and complemented them with skirts known as mosese. These outfits were crucial in expressing Tswana identity, reflecting social roles, age, and gender such as a warrior, chief, wife/husband, or widower. 

“Gentler Sex”

The refashioning process accelerated with the campaign to domesticate the “gentler sex” whereby colonial agents persuaded the women of Tswana to embrace the introduction of ready-made garments. In line with their religious beliefs, women missionaries such as Mary Moffat and other English middle to upper-middle-class Christian wives would send their old clothes to African communities to domesticate the bare bodies of African women. As a result, Tswana women began covering their breasts and adopting aprons and skirts, symbolising their new roles within the domestic sphere. This shift was part of a broader effort by female missionaries to integrate Tswana communities into both British Christendom and the Western systems of capitalism, commerce, and trade.

Agency Within Fashion

During the early days of the colonialism, most members of the Tswana community remained strongly aligned with their traditional fashion. European clothing was rarely worn as intended. Instead, Tswana royalty and their people adopted it in a subversive, parodical, and critical fashion, particularly during ceremonial occasions involving visiting evangelists. Scottish missionary John Philip, stationed in Southern Africa, noted that during his encounters with King Mateebe and his family, the court combined European garments like pantaloons, shirts, and waistcoats with traditional items such as cat-skin karosses, while the women paired gowns with jackal-skin karosses.

Colonial Order

This blending of styles was viewed with disdain by colonial agents, who interpreted it as a form of cultural miscegenation – the mixing of different racial and ethnic groups, particularly in the context of fashion. They believed this to undermine the ‘purity’ of European culture and to threaten the colonial order. Despite colonial efforts, traditional attire continued to be worn in both private and public ceremonies, serving as a powerful symbol of resilience and cultural preservation. In this way, fashion became a key form of expression, closely linked to mobility, agency, and resistance against colonial pressures.