ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, in a brilliant example of an “invented tradition,” wax print fabric has become an iconic element of fashion among Black people from the African continent to the European and American Diasporas. This unpredictable situation originated in the mid-nineteenth century as the result of the meeting of various cultural elements from Asia, Europe, and Africa. The industrialization of the Indonesian technique of batik by Dutch manufacturers reached the coast of Ghana thanks to a Scottish trader and Swiss missionaries, and wax print saw growing economical success when Togolese women started to use the designs as elements of a language. Over more than 125 years, wax print has become a mirror to changing societies, a prism through which local African economies and the global commercial relationship with Europe and Asia can be analyzed. The transformation of the fabric into clothing constitutes another path to examining how different types of garment can reflect various identity issues.
