Ethnic Influences on Apparel Design

Since the twenties we have been seeing forgien influnces on western dress. Many ethnic groups have influnced our designs by the colors that are use down to the patterns. Sometimes these influnces are so small you might not even realize them.

My Culture, Human Behavior, and Clothing class has been recently studing Kente Cloth which is native to Ghana, located in central Africa. Kente Cloth has been around for over five hundred years and each color and pattern in the design means something different. Our teacher Mrs. Brown taught us today that Kente Cloth became popular in the U.S. when the first president of Ghana visited America wearing a Kente Cloth garment. I have actually seen many dresses and other types of appearel with the Kente Cloth patterns on them. So even though Kente Cloth is a very traditional type of dress in Ghana, designers sometimes are influences by things such as Kente Cloth and they create something very new and fashionable.

Indian clothing has also been influencing fashion since the 1960's. Youth in the sixties started to wear indian influenced designs to imbrace their new free love, nonconforming attitudes (CNST Indian Influences on Fashion). During my reasearch I also learned that tie die, which is actually called bandhani in the Hindi language, originated in India (CNST Indian Influences on Fashion). I thought the example of tie dieing was a great one because everyone I know has at least one tie died shirt. These are just a few of the many ways that Ethnic Designs have influenced fashion as we know it.