Recycle urban style meets traditional

Unique trend. Giving clothes a new life is what adding a kitenge fabric to recycle clothes does PHOTOS BY ABUBAKER LUBOWA

What you need to know:

Unique trend. Giving clothes a new life is what adding a kitenge fabric to recycle clothes does, writes Douglas D. Sebamala.

Blue denim shirts with African patterned fabric for the shoulder and collar, are part of a collection Urban Market by Batalo East. These shirts have a trendy custom-made style from the mass of clothes dumped in markets such as Owino and Portbell in Jinja from China or Japan.
“We are looking for ways of getting all that redesigned and exported back to the same countries,” says Abdul Kiyenga, “call it up-cycling,” he adds. Jeans never go out of fashion. With the African print on every man’s must-wear wardrobe list, merging the two gives you a retro fashion statement.
Kiyenga says, “men should just reinvent fashion and start making statements. There are some offices where they would say it is too much if you wore kitenge ‘you are overdressed’. However, it should be okay to wear anything we want, be brave enough to wear African if it makes you comfortable, look at Nigeria’s Jonathan Goodluck.”

Customised denim
These go for Shs30,000 but are sold differently on different markets. Given how internationally spread the Batalo East brand has become, the same shirt would cost 10 Euros in Europe (approx. Shs35,000), and £10 in UK (approx. Shs50,000). The denim is in fade and dark blue shades, with brown and patterned African fabric.

T-shirts and vests
These come with messages and the imprint “Urban Meets Traditional” and images of dance motives owing to Batalo’s hip-hop dance fusions with traditional dance motifs. T-shirts and vests as these have been around for the lifetime with labels such as Zara, H&M branding theirs with messages. So how about messages promoting your roots?

Challenge
Because we do not have many seasons here, Kiyenga says, “most of our clothes are monotonous. Good sweaters, jumpers or hoodies but somebody owns only one and not a whole collection because they will only need it for a rainy cold day. Or when they travel long distances for funerals and the weather in the villages might be unpredictable.”

Tips
Men have been customised and westernised to think about fashion in a particular way. “If anyone tells you kitenge is everywhere- so are the suits and ties” we wear to office! Spicing up your kitenge with denim is a better way of keeping it trendy and urban at the same time.

Challenge
Because we do not have many seasons here, Kiyenga says, “most of our clothes are monotonous. Good sweaters, jumpers or hoodies but somebody owns only one and not a whole collection because they will only need it for a rainy cold day. Or when they travel long distances for funerals and the weather in the villages might be unpredictable.”