A warm welcome to yet another edition of Arts and Culture. I must apologise to the beloved readers of this column for the temporal stoppage owing to the long festive period. I wish to seize this opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year and pray that it is a year of peace, progress and prosperity for the country and humanity at large. However, in this edition, we take a closer look at the beauty of African dress code.

The beauty of African dress code is quite obvious and  it has an inherent quality with a linkage to our reach culture and tradition. However, its common to see youths, especially young beautiful school going aged dressed in short skirts exposing their body. I acknowledge the fact that such actions are done in the name of fashion and modernity; hence having little regards for our deeply rooted cherished traditional norms and values.

It is disgusting for the people of Africa and African descends to turn against our deep rooted traditional norms and values in favour of  foreign cultures. Our beloved continent is perceived to be the richest of all the continents in the world in terms of mineral resources, but unfortunately turns to be the poorest of the poor in terms of human and capital developments.

We have seen, heard and read historical records relating to use of cloths,  constituting a main source of dressing for our forebearers in the primitive time, where in people used tree leaves, animal skin and other flat light products just to cover themselves up from effects of environmental hazards.  The primitive and stone aged people were not privileged to have a well dress code as it’s the case in our present day generation.

Science and technology has made human life on earth much more easier now than what was tenable in the past. People have to take stock of our dress code against its  current abuse, as rampantly seen in our streets and public places, which runs contrary to the spirit and teachings of all religious believes, especially Islam, which made a strong recommendation for women to cover their body with the exception of few areas of the body, for instance.

It is rather unfortunate to see our youths delighted in exposing their bodies in public places without having regards to who may be on the watch even their parents and relatives. Such an act has  amounted to lack of decency and corruption of the public moral and a disregard to our beautiful dressing culture.

Parents have to act now than later by instilling desire and recommended virtues in their children at a tender age, instead of leaving them to grow on their own material desires, which sift our collective and individual desires for peace, progress and prosperity to a more trouble world.

We must learnt to be ambassadors of peace through acts and actions and properly bring up children, as a key element of that peace making process. We must be ready to embrace high moral decency, coated in love, respect, confidence and self value through self awareness about the purpose of our unique creation with deeper sense of responsibility.

Effective use of clothing has comparative advantage for the people of the globe. It has made life on earth worth living and memorable especially for those engaged in the world of fashion and clothing; such as actors, musicians, celebrities, world leaders compose of both political and religious leaders, academics among others.

We have seen and heard about lives of people renowned for dressing well and use of such beautiful dresses to have lasting impression on the minds of their audience, friends and others who came in contact with them. This brought to mind common phrases frequently heard dress to impress, dress to succeed, dress to work, dress to bed, dress for clubbing among others.

Beautiful dresses have made acting impressive and an enviable industry, which has become lucrative. Though the Gambian fashion and beauty industry is at its tender age, it’s not conceivable in the absence of a well dress code,  in line with our traditional, cultural norms and values.

Again beauty pageants and other fashion programmes must be examined so as to have a comprehensive understanding of the use of dress code in line with the subject at hand. It would be of interest to note the impression and appreciation that comes to your mind when you see a well dressed beautiful African man or woman in an African attire with everything well done by an experienced  tailor. You know what I mean, the traditional African attire covering the whole body with loose ends visible in the air accompanied by a slow-paced majestic walk.