Nairobi — A State of Mind Cooperation Goethe-Institut Nairobi ...

Maasai Mbili, Chokora Wear, 2011
What is Chokora Wear?
This is a contemporary fashion research project whose aim
is the creation of a clothing line designed by locals, for
locals with the assistance of artists and local fashion
designers.
Chokora Wear is involved in research as to how individual
identity, personality, and culture can be reclaimed through
fashion. Chokora is a Swahili word which can mean »to dig
into« or »things that are given to street people,« thus
lending this project its name. The research project is
divided across three areas in Kenya, namely Nairobi’s poor
Kibera slum, Diani Beach, Mombasa’s coastal area, where
inhabitants lead simple lives, and northern Kenya’s
Turkana District with its arid and harsh conditions.
The aim of the project is to create a clothing line that
participants of the project would themselves find
desirable, that creates a »look« and also sends out a
message. These ideas are to then be shared with other
people.
Concept
Clothes are a basic human need. They are distributed via a
system known as business business, business
the clothing business, and this
business is also the trend.
trend.
The public later exhibits the clothes in public spaces in
another system called fashion. fashion. This fashion then becomes
the public’s culture culture. culture Many things occur during this process,
but very few people are aware that they are involved in
the process process. process The few who do understand this, research
what the rest of us like, to create something they call
design design. design This design is created for us according to our
differing life styles. Within fashion, design creates a desire
for more.
Interviews that the project has been conducted showed,
that everyone has a new kind of modern modern fashion fashion fashion sense
mostly derived from international celebrities, who always
wear the newest fashions. This has led to people forming a
kind of »positive positive selfishness selfishness« selfishness and a desire to be more
attractive to others and more attractive than others.
This research was conducted in an attempt to demonstrate
to people that they could fulfill their own desire for
originality and their craving for whatever it is they
consider to be fashion, simply by creating their own!
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