OUR DRESS CODE IS A COLONIAL RELIC

Sometimes back, there was heightened publicity in the media by a soap making company which claimed that it was sponsoring a countrywide search for a Kenyan dress design and development. This also reminds us of the current sponsorship by a beer company that is similarly claiming a regional search and development of music by tapping on the youthful talent. We shouldn't be surprised, either,  if a tobacco company comes up with a bizarre promotion frenzy of lung cancer clinics across the country! There is, however, absolutely nothing in the matter in all the above because that is marketing gimmick which is acceptable. Anyway, over the years, dress has been used as a cultural, class, gender and age identity. Thus the Queen of England has her regalia, the Pope his robes, the military their epaulets and our little girls their floral dresses. Some Kenyan communities like the Turkana, Masai and Giriama still retain their traditional dresses that are culturally distinctive.On the other hand the astronauts and mechanics are easily identified from their mode of dress that is both protective and suitable. But one wonders what our Chief Justice and the Speaker of the National Assembly want to portray, after so many years of independence, with their characteristic English wigs and gowns which are not only uncomfortable but misplaced. Now, if these high offices occupied by some of the best brains in the country can't chart the way of dress, by shedding the vestiges of colonialism, then I wonder who will? It would then be utterly futile to blame our teenagers for dressings the way they do after watching a few Hollywood film clips if our creme de le creme are the top culprits. I think, it's now time we deliberately came to our true senses as Africans and developed a dress that is comfortable, suitable and relevant culturally. But please, not the Kaunda and the Gaddafi type, which are not original!  Mandela, may be!