Typical Clothing

Part Un: Traditional Pagne
The most common fashion, particularly for the older generations and pretty much everyone in rural areas, is the sometimes absurd/sometimes beautiful/occasionally incomprehensible and ALWAYS loud variety of African fabric, called 'pagne' here in the francophone Grand North. One buys it in a 6 meter sheet at the market or in stores in larger towns. In provincial capitols, there are usually young dudes walking around on the streets and in bars with 5-20 sheets displayed on their arms, apparently keen to take advantage of the drunken impulse buy...of a crapload of neon orange fabric with ducks fighting roosters on it. In my defense, the blue accents on the roosters' talons really bring out my eyes.
Pagne is something a bit hard to explain well, because it varies SO much. The fabric itself might be made of a million different materials, and the designs vary from a monochrome black silk with sporadic gold stars to a rainbow-colored affair covered in multilingual slogans and cartoons urging the populace to 'support their local post office,' 'honor their mothers and fathers,' or ' wipe from front to back...EVERY time.' Basically, your institution, national holiday, ethnic group or social initiative doesn't exist unless you've created a pagne pattern to announce it.
For the buyers, once you've chosen the pattern that defines your innermost soul (or you wake up wrapped in one you apparently couldn't live without the night before), the next step is to turn it from a sheet into a sundress or cute flowy skirt...or pajama pants in my case. Most villages are teeming with tailers, and once you've found your dude and he's taken your measurements, all you need to do is walk in, give him the newest fabric purchase and a rudimentary sketch of what you'd like made, and haggle down the price for the job. Since most women in my village prefer 80s-style huge sleeves and extra room in the stomach (for the inevitable next pregnancy), I've had a few disasters attempting to recreate American fashions, but Lucien (my man behind the sewing machine) is finally coming to understand that 'basic' and 'understated' never mean adding plastic beads and ruffles.
Part Deux: When Your Pagne is Dirty
Though pagne is infinitely more comfortable than jeans and a T-shirt (it's really more like wrapping yourself in a sheet than anything else), the impracticality of wearing it to work in the field and the ever-present and ever-growing influence of Western habits has led many in the country, particularly youth and those living in urban areas, to abandon the rainbow patterns in favor of tube tops, thrift store t-shirts and tight jeans...with rainbow patterned patches of course.
Where does one find these leopard-print vests and Thompson Family Reunion 1983 commemorative sweatshirts, you ask? At the Frippe, that glorious section of the market that's really just a huge, open air Salvation Army, specializing in everything from old-school Adidas track suits to boutique-quality hand-made beaded tops and accessories. The best frippes are in big cities or close to the border of Nigeria (aka Land of Wonders and Quality Electronics), but items as diverse as tapered jeans, knock-off LaCoste polos and Nascar jerseys occasionally wind up at local rural markets, for at most $2 a piece. Jackpot.