LUSAKA, ZAMBIA – When Veronica Sampa was growing up, she dreamed of establishing a career in marketing. But now, in her late 20s, she has realized that her passion is fashion.
Sampa is one of the leading fashion designers in Zambia. She has a company that designs and sells items from clothing to jewelry. She has participated in various regional and international exhibitions, and her face can be seen on posters around Lusaka, the capital.
"We can only promote our tradition[al] way of dressing by working together as designers, government and the people. "
She also aims to use her knowledge and experience in the fashion industry to empower women. She holds workshops for women to train them in fashion designing.
She held one workshop in September during Zambia’s Month of the Woman Entrepreneur in Kayama, a compound of Lusaka. Of medium height and fairly dark in complexion, she stands in front of a group of women wearing a scarf on her head and a green chitenge dress, a long garment that symbolizes a conservative African woman.
She teaches the women about the importance of business and how a woman can progress in the fashion industry on her own. She translates some of the English words written on the board in the front of the room to the local language for some women who are unfamiliar with them.
Sampa, who has been in the fashion industry for a decade, says fashion is diverse here. She says that so far, Zambians have no specific fashion they can call their own, except for the traditional clothing worn during cultural ceremonies.
“I have never seen people wearing [clothes] that can be said as Zambian,” she says.
She says there is a need to promote as well as enhance traditional clothes that people wear at ceremonies here in order to assert and preserve Zambians’ identity.
Zambians debate whether the country has any style to call its own. But many agree that modesty is one stamp of identity when it comes to Zambian fashion and decry the more revealing clothing that many youths wear, which they blame on outside influence. Some women here have taken it upon themselves to discourage promiscuous clothing and ask fashion designers to promote a more local and conservative style.
Traditional clothing for women in Zambia is long, loose and conservative. A common outfit is the chitenge suit – a traditional shirt and skirt, which is also called a wrapper, that are made from chitenge, a type of material.
Annette Tembo, 18, works as a cashier at a boutique in a newly opened shopping complex in a residential area. She agrees with Sampa that Zambian fashion lacks originality.
“I do not think we have a specific way of dressing in Zambia because most of the people here do not want to initiate their own way of dressing and clothing,” she says.
But others disagree.
Josephine Mukuka, 45, is an elementary teacher at a community school. Unlike Sampa and Tembo, she says that Zambia has its own fashion that identifies the clothing as uniquely Zambian.
“A Zambian can be identified as one when putting on a long dress, not too tight clothing, and of course a chitenge suit or wrapper,” she says.
Vigiriah Kapya, 18, agrees. Putting on a pair of tight trousers, she says that Zambians do have their own fashion associated with their culture. She says this includes wrappers and chitenge suits.
