Making clothes from banana leaves
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E-mail CNTV, May 12, 2015
Some use them for cooking, others use them for medicinal purposes. But one couturier in Cameroon is using banana leaves to make clothing. By stripping, drying and then sewing the long leaves together, Solange Nana has created garments influenced by popular local styles.
While some clothes designers have sprawling studios, Cameroonian textile maker, tailor and stylist Solange Nana has this.
In the small western Cameroonian town of Bafoussam, the clothes stylist is beginning a tried and tested process.
Stripping dried leaves from this banana tree, she's not planning to cook them, but make clothes from them.
It's a time-consuming process which begins with stripping all the leaves from tree trunks, then sorting the good ones from the bad.
"The next step is to go through the leaves one by one, get rid of any that are not good. Then I take the rest and I tan them before I work with them," said Solange Nana, the couturier.
Solange works at a nearby design store, sewing decorations.
It was on the suggestion of her husband, seven years ago, that she began making clothes from banana leaves.
She had previous experience making traditional straw skirts and clothing for special events being held in her community.
She also said:"One day, my husband remarked how I like traditional clothing, like made out of straw. I liked straw clothes a lot, and I made them too, but he asked me 'Why don't you sew using banana leaf?' He went and got some banana leaves for me and asked me to make him a jacket out of banana. I liked the idea, so I tanned and stitched it and I did it."
Solange says she wanted to create something 'biological', something that's natural which can be worn.
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