A while ago my friend asked me to join him to go to The Battle of Les Sapeurs. I didn’t know what to expect and he had to convince me to come. I am so glad he did, because it was a fantastic spectacle.

The battle was between dressed up and  overdressed  flamboyant black man showing of their outfits. They didn’t even bother to take of the price tags, or rather show of the price tags and  the labels inside the clothes. Lots of Dries van Noten, like the man in the pink suit, Gucci, Cavalli, Yohji Yamamoto and Prada. One of the Sapeurs must have been inspired by John Galliano’s look… It was a hysterical and funny event. I wanted to know more about this phenomenon.

In 1922, G.A. Matsoua returned from Paris to Congo with a suitcase filled with French clothes and became the first known Sapeur. But the SAPE cult of style movement, Société des Ambianceurs et Personal Élégants, got really popular in the 1960s and 70s thanks to musician and singer Papa Wemba, who traveled multiple times to Paris to buy French fashion and developed an exaggerated and flamboyant style of dressing.

A Sapeur is a non-violent person and stands for an exquisite morality. They represent an illusion, supported by the government itself, trying to normalize a post-war situation. The SAPE interrupted its activities from 1997 till 2002, because of the civil war.

Sapeurs hold to European Haute Couture as religion, which is practised in absolute serious. Old school Sapeurs saved up years to be able to afford outfits. They often started out renting or borrowing suits. The younger generation doesn’t want to wait that long and aren’t fussy when it comes to a source of income.

Being a Sapeur is very expensive, so the dark side of this movement is the length some Sapeurs go to get their expansive clothes. Some have resorted to illegal means to obtain their suits and even have spent time in jail. Papa Wemba himself has spent time in jail, because he illegally smuggled Congolese man and women into Europe for a shopping spree, disguised as members of his band.

Within the SAPE movement are rivalries and affiliations, Paris versus Brussels, Brazzaville versus Kinshasa and Bacongo versus Mungali. This expresses into total fashion warfare… The Brazzaville Sapeurs follow a three colours rule and in Kinshasa it’s all about  going overboard. It was at one of these battles, I got introduced to Les Sapeurs.

 Sapeurs consider themselves artists and are respected and admired. They get invited to events such as weddings to add a touch of elegance. Being a sapeur is not only about dressing impeccable, it is about style and gestures too. The cigar is the ultimate symbol for the Sapeur, although some Sapeurs never smoke their cigars.

Ofcourse there is a contradiction between the poverty in Congo and the eccentricity and extravagance of the Sapeurs, but in this post I look at the SAPE movement from a fashion point of view. To read more about the political and cultural background go to

www.soulsafari.wordpress.com/tag/les-sapeurs/

Book

‘Gentlemen of Bacongo’ ,with a introduction written by Paul Smith.

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to order :   http://www.amazon.com/Gentlemen-Bacongo-Daniele-Tamagni/dp/190456383X

Kirsten Owen has been my favorite model, since the first picture I saw of her. I am pretty sure it’s the picture above, by Peter Lindbergh, for Vogue Italia. What makes her so special to me is difficult to explain, but I’ll try..

She started her modeling career at the age of 17 , when she almost immediately appeared on 3 different covers of ELLE magazine at the same time, in Italy, France and Spain. Something unheard of for a newcomer in the business. Photographers love her for her eyes and androgynous appeal and designers for her ability to add something extra to the clothes, a quality not many models have… she is not just a pretty woman.

I like her, because she has a punky glamour, naturel beauty and  mystique in her face. When showing Haute Couture, she makes it look more ‘wearable’. In portraits she captures my eyes and makes me wonder what on her mind. She can make basics look like high fashion and high fashion less extraordinary…

I just want to show some of her work, because I admire her beauty.

Two years ago, I travelled to Japan for the first time and fell in love with this country. Not only for its beauty, but also because of the incredible inspiration you sense everywhere around. During my stay in Tokyo, I went to the Mori Art Museum and in the museum shop I found a dvd that triggered me. The pictures on the cover are mystique and somehow I felt, I needed to buy it. Later, back home, I googled the dvd (I couldn’t read the Japanese text on the cover) and it is called: An Offering To Heaven. The two documentaries (2 discs) are such an inspiration!

The main person in the two documentaries is Kazuo Ohno, one of the most famous dancers of Japan and inspirator/developer of the dance style butoh, a dance with very slow movements. He studied athletics at university, started working as a sport-teacher and kept on teaching till he was 86 years old. After he saw a performance of Spanish dancer La Argentina in 1926, he also started studying modern dance. In 1949 Ohno opened his first dance studio and worked together with Tatsumi Hijikata,with whom he developed the butoh dance style. In 1977 Ohno travelled the world, performing solo ‘La Argentina Sho’,a butoh classic.

He stayed devoted to dance, even in his late nineties. Although he could no longer dance with his legs, he kept on dancing with his upper body, sitting on a chair or supported by an assistant. The first dvd ‘Flower’ contains footage of Ohno’s last performance in 2001 (he was 95 years old). A most touching performance…

On the second disc a documentary filmed in 2002, based around the life and work as  Ikebana master (Japanese art in flower arrangements)  Yukio Nakagawa, like Ohno a genius in his art, who devoted his life to flowers. Being kindred spirits, Ohno and Nakagawa collaborated numerous times. Both man were outsiders in their art and only in their later years did they get recognition. When, in the documentary, both men met again at a performance of Ohno, it’s moving to see the geniuses meet and feel so humble in each others presence…

Their last collaboration is a breathtaking performance in open air in  May 2002 on the Shinano riverbed, where Nakagawa builds a dream with millions of multi-coloured tulips, thrown out of a helicopter, as the wheelchair bound Ohno dances under the swirling shower of petals in the rain…

When I bought the album ‘The Crying Light’ by Antony and the Johnsons, I did not only love the music, but also the black&white picture on the cover. Later, when I was preparing for this post, I dicovered it’s a portrait of Kazuo Ohno on the cover of the album. Anhony Hegarty (singer-songwriter of Antony and the Johnsons) says Kazuo Ohno is his largest source of inspiration in  life and work. Spring 2010, a few months before Ohno died, Hegarty visited Ohno and his son Yoshito, a master dancer too, in their studio and gave a concert in Tokyo in honor of Kazuo Ohno, in collaboration with Yoshito…

 ‘An Offering To Heaven’ inspires me very much!!!  You can order it at:  www.kazuoohnodancestudio.com