Bamako, at the big crossroads of the Garantibougou district: begging children with tin bowls knock on car windows in front of the traffic lights, girls balance trays full of water bags or sesame biscuits between passers-by, bus boys scream and hit the tin of the brightly painted “Sotrama” minibuses for a stop to signal. Deafening horns, roaring engines, clouds of dust. African megacity chaos. And right in the middle: women in bright blue, bright yellow and bright green costumes and turbans stroll through the tumult with the casualness of born queens. Men in shiny, embroidered boubous let their prayer chains click. And because today is Sunday, the day of weddings, even the moped grapes look even more colorful and luminous than usual – as if the drivers wanted to outdo each other in a competition for the most magnificent costume.
How is it that in Mali, one of the poorest countries in the world, people prefer to invest in fine fabrics? What stories do the hand-made costumes tell? And what does Germany have to do with it?
Getzner, please! When it comes to damask issues, the Vorarlberg company in Mali is the first port of call
These are the questions I ask myself when I enter the fabric shop with the oversized shop windows at the said traffic light. Like a modern supertanker, it rests in the archaic turmoil. Bazin riche, Damask, proclaims the neon sign – framed by Austrian and German flags. “In fact, many Malians would rather go hungry than skimp on their clothes,” says Soya Bathily, the 35-year-old shop owner. “And if you want to make an impression, you should definitely buy German or Austrian fabrics. The first quality”.
Behind the office, Bathily has a whole wall full of shiny fabrics. Bazin riche from weaving operations in Gera, Augsburg or Bludenz, where the tightly woven fabric with the typical relief-like thread pattern has been produced for many centuries. But that a high-wage country like Germany exports to West Africa of all places! If you believe Bathily, it has to do with local quality standards. A love for extravagant fabrics and cuts that should never come off the shelf.
A customer, an elderly lady, who, as she says, is shopping for a wedding, points to a pink bundle of fabric. One of the employees fetches it from the shelf using a ladder, takes it out of the plastic cover, unfolds it and lets it slip through his fingers. The shine is right. The slight rustling too. The two quality features that matter in Mali.
A costume for every festival: a baptism in Mali.
(Photo: Jonathan Fischer)
“How many meters of Getzner can it be?” Getzner – the word is now a synonym for high-quality damask in local Bamana. The Getzner company in Vorarlberg has been the market leader in West Africa for almost a decade. The German companies HC, Dierig and Barilux also compete for the favor of Malian customers. “I travel to Getzner in Vorarlberg every year and to textile fairs in Munich and Hamburg,” explains Bathily, who, as befits a cosmopolitan businessman, wears a damask boubou. “The colors in the photos often do not correspond to reality. It is better to check everything on site.”
Trade center for West Africa: A real industry depends on fabrics in Mali
Bathily is one of a dozen wholesalers from Bamako who import their goods directly from Germany and Austria. To resell them to hundreds of boutiques across West Africa. “Damask is the Mercedes of fabrics,” says Bathily. “And Mali is the center of the damask trade. Business people from Senegal, Burkina Faso or the Ivory Coast travel here to buy the fabric. Or to order ready-made costumes”. A real industry hangs on the Bazin: the importers, the market sellers, the dye works that produce individual designs, the workshops that shine the damask, the embroidery companies and then all the tailors who give each customer their own personal design. “We Malians not only wear the Bazin on Fridays to visit the mosque,” says Dandara Traore, one of Bathily’s regular customers, “but also on all other festive days. If you are invited to a wedding or baptism here, you definitely need a new one Costume, one from German bazin riche“.
What fuels African haute couture fantasies has long been considered slow-moving in the West. Damask: In this country, this stands for grandma’s napkins, tablecloths and bed linen. Well-behaved. And about as old-fashioned as crocheted desk phone covers. In fact, the know-how of damask production came from Damascus – hence the name – to Central Europe almost 900 years ago. A fabric for high demands. Woven only from the purest cotton, extremely thin yarns and in sophisticated weaving patterns. When the damask bedding business collapsed in the 1970s and cheaper, colorfully printed cotton linen became fashionable, a few resourceful managers at Getzner had the saving idea: Why not supply the African market? Nigerian merchants were the first to make contact with damask weaving mills in Saxony and Thuringia in the former GDR. Other manufacturers got wind of the Africa Connection. For Getzner in particular, it turned out to be a stroke of luck. Today 98 percent of damask production is exported, the Vorarlberg company is expanding and recently had new weaving mills built near Dresden.
The trend started when storytellers and singers appeared in new clothes
The triumph of damask in West Africa, Bathily recalls, came with the suddenness of a tidal wave. Printed wax fabrics dominated the market for a long time. But then more and more griots, the traditional singers and storytellers of West Africa, appeared in shiny damask. Politicians, pop stars and entertainers followed. And even on the radio there was passionate about this one special subject – such as the chanteuse Safi Diabate with her song “Nuit de Bazin”. Today no Malian can avoid a damask costume. That was Bathily’s bet once too. In 2014, after completing his law studies in Tunis, he was faced with a choice: grapple with a corrupt system as a lawyer – or turn beauty into money. Bathily opened its first fabric shop in Bamako’s central market. He has now opened two more boutiques and sales are fantastic. Especially when instead of cheap Chinese imitations you can offer traditional German names such as Getzner, Fussenegger, HC or Dierig.
Splendor from Germany and Austria: a blue festive robe.
(Photo: Jonathan Fischer)
In return, Germans and Austrians need feedback from large buyers like Bathily. “They base their range of colors on our orders,” says the damask merchant. Normally, one meter of the approximately 1.60 meter wide length of fabric costs 10,000 francs. German quality, which means that the fabrics retain their shine even after being washed several times. Then he unfolds a cloth that has been printed in bright colors with plant motifs. “This is the most expensive damask on offer. The meter for 15,000 francs.” That corresponds to about 23 euros. Considering a monthly salary of around 100 euros for a state-employed teacher, a fortune. “Some people save for years only to then spend a million CFA (over 1500 euros) on a dress order in one fell swoop. I do a lot of business with weddings in particular: the bride and groom provide a model and a color. And they expect the invited to themselves to have appropriate uniforms tailored. “
Is cultural imperialism at work here? In Mali, damask is seen as a raw material
However, the damask boom also raises uncomfortable questions: Is the West possibly getting rich again from the economic divide with Africa? Do European substances – similar to the surplus tomatoes or frozen chickens exported from the EU – harm the domestic market? Is there even something like cultural imperialism behind it? At least to the latter question, Sale Dembele can clearly deny: “We see the Bazin as our very own Malian fabric,” says the 50-year-old operator of a fabric dyeing factory in Bamako’s Badalabougou district. “The white Getzner damask is just the basic material. Because customers come with their own ideas when it comes to colors and patterns. In the end, no two fabrics are alike”.
A dusty place on the side of the road, half a dozen large vats, a couple of clotheslines: that’s all the equipment at Dembele’s company. She and her sister employ a dozen women who, armed with rubber gloves and face masks, immerse large bundles of fabric in the boiling, steaming baths of paint. Before that, the dyers have tied the rolls of fabric artfully with cords: This is how the batik-like marbling and patterns are created – in several combined colors if desired.
“Dyeing and subsequent processing increases the value of the fabrics,” says Dembele, who is the second generation to manage her dye works. However, she no longer touches the paint pots herself. The paint itself is non-toxic, she says, but not the added fixative. Because she used to protect herself insufficiently against the toxic fumes, her health is in poor health – skin and lung problems that she is having treated in Paris. Dembele can afford that thanks to their flourishing business. Dyeing costs 10,000 CFA per meter. The subsequent high-gloss treatment is included in the price. A young man on a moped hands a dozen plastic bags to Madame Dembele, who watches over her business in a plastic armchair. A few streets further on, a couple of muscular boys worked on the dyed but dulled fabric panels under a thatched roof. Hammered onto a tree trunk with wooden sticks weighing 5 kilograms. Knocked to a shine. In a rhythm that thunders through the square like handmade techno. For hours. Now it goes to quality control. The entrepreneur tears open each bag individually. She gently strokes the folded lengths of fabric. The damask has a greasy shine, crunches between your fingers, falls silky light. She nods happily. “Now only the tailors and stickers have to do their job.”
If Soya Bathily has its way, the rest of the value chain will also move to Mali. “Mali is one of the largest cotton producers in Africa,” says the businessman. “Up until the 1970s we had our own textile industry, producing Malian wax fabrics”. Then the lack of spare parts, corruption and trade barriers paralyzed operations. The damask boom could now create new conditions. Bathily in any case has a plan: “The damask looms are very expensive. But I am negotiating with some companies in Europe to buy used looms”. Could the establishment of your own local weaving mill compete with German and Austrian products in West Africa’s boutiques? It’s still a dream. In the end, however, the West African customers will decide: “Every Malian,” says Bathily, “recognizes the quality of a fabric at first glance. And those who can afford it will never buy second-rate ones. Your Bazin is your calling card.”