Feel Africa

There is a large department store here in Switzerland called Manor. Comprable to Marshall Fields. They had advertising up for their spring line of fashion and the theme this year is 'Feel Africa'. As you can imagine I was not thrilled at all. Rather a little dissapointed that internationally inclined people, like the Swiss, would stoop to an artifical level of fashion that has more earthy colors and large print designs and call it African. BUT, much to my surprise it isn't like that at all. For the next two weeks in Manor stores everywhere in Switzerland there will be a full blown African culture experience. For instance, African makeup (I'm still a little skeptical about that), and African hair braiding for free. I was randomly wandering through Manor yesterday and there was a Senegalese group of musicians and dancers. It was like African Culture week at Illinois Wesleyan, but in a commercial clothing store. It was really cool. The dancers got people from the crowd to try to dance. Very different from the States, where, African inspired fashion lines stop at the clothing. Instead, in Switzerland it's more of an educational experience. By no means is it purely for education, it's to make money, I can see that. But, still I think it's cool that they would go to the trouble of integrating African culture with inspired fashion as a marketing technique.

p.s. sorry if I spelt a lot wrong, the spell check isn't working....