“We Haitians, despite the misery, love beauty, love to get dressed up, to smell and look good,” says fashion designer David André. “So many people tend to believe that fashion doesn’t affect a society. They are so wrong. Human beings always seek change. They yearn for new tastes and new styles, and this desire is adequately fulfilled by fashion.”
André’s comments reflect my own experiences travelling in Haiti over the last few years, researching a book about the country’s music scene. I remember churchgoers in their Sunday best and streets full of schoolkids in pin-sharp navy uniforms, proud Mardi Gras Indians in headdresses hung with tinsel, and Vodou worshippers in paper-white dresses and headscarves gleaming in the early morning light. In my sweat-stained t-shirts and jeans thick with road dust, I always felt like a terrible scruff. Once I even got heckled at a bus station: “Look at the state of you, . Your clothes are filthy!” (clothes do not make a person), or so the Haitian proverb goes, but I guess they’re somewhere to start.
