'Those Famous Shirts'

CIRCA on Jellicoe is proud to host an exhibition of a selection of Nelson Mandela’s iconic shirts.

'Clothes Maketh a Man' - Marianne Fassler


Archive footage of Nelson Mandela reveals this about the man:


‘I’ve always had these statements that clothes maketh the man. But I never knew the real meaning of that until I was arrested. Then I was asked to strip naked. There were chiefs, there were professors, there were ministers of religion. Then when I looked at them I realized, indeed, clothes maketh a man.’

As a South African Fashion Designer with a distinctly African influence in my work, I have spent some decades trying to understand the relationship between Identity and Fashion. Those two concepts are seemingly almost diametrically opposed. Identity has substance. It’s something some people spend a lifetime searching for, and other people know with absolute conviction, based on their heritage and their selfhood or integrity. Fashion, on the other hand, is often (quite rightly) perceived as of no substance, all about trend and fickle.

I beg to disagree. Fashion in fact reflects history, reflects current affairs, and responds to global events and big cultural milestones. At its best and it’s most innovative, fashion is a reflection of change, not a cause of it. Hence the context and meaning of the Madiba shirt in the history of post-Apartheid South Africa.

So what do those shirts tell us about the man, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela:

They tell us that for Madiba, Fashion was hardly frivolous .He understood the real power of dressing and used it as a very effective communication tool.

Madiba was always a good dresser, but nowhere was this intuitive understanding of the power of dressing more evident than in 1961 at his treason trial where he came in the full traditional regalia of a Xhosa prince. In 1995 when he needed to reunite a country torn apart by apartheid, he stepped out, at the Rugby World Cup, in a rugby jersey steeped in symbolism.

But, back to the shirts:

For 27 years Nelson Mandela wore prison clothes, yet only 4 years after his release from Robben Island, the world hailed Nelson Mandela as a fashion icon.

‘He’s not just a living saint, but a fashion statement.” Said the New York Times

Desre Buirski, gave him his first silk shirt as a gift of thanks to this man who was to become the first Black President of South Africa. He loved it so much that he contacted her some weeks later and commissioned her to make some more. The first of the commissioned shirts, a really regal rich silk in black and green and gold, she presented to him on his birthday. The first photo of Madiba wearing that famous shirt was taken at a tea party he had organized for the ex -Apartheid Cabinet’s wives and all the ANC Freedom Fighters wives....Archival footage show him smiling broadly and saying:

‘This is a practical way of forgetting the past. These are the wives of heroes from both sides.
We have fought our fights in the past. We have forgotten that now; we are building a new South
Africa.’

Desre Buisky describes the shirts as ‘bold, colourful, soft-flowing, elegant and mostly comfortable and fun to wear.” They were always formally buttoned up right to the top, with a sartorial elegance that radiated with warmth and colour. The look was called ‘Madiba Smart' and appeared on invitations to gala events in New York, London and Johannesburg. This caught on very quickly, with even the most formal of businessmen, rock stars, dignitaries and statesmen, embracing a more relaxed form of dress in his company. But, irrespective of who he was meeting, or what the occasion was, Madiba’s dress code was the Madiba shirt. He even broke with a centuries old tradition and stubbornly refused to wear a
tie to meet the Queen of England. He also broke many other traditions on that visit, amongst
others, calling her Elizabeth and putting his arm around her...charming as ever.

What do those shirts mean to us?

While it might be frivolous to talk about Madiba’s iconic fashion statements, and superficial to dwell on the importance of wearing a tie, perhaps Nelson Mandela’s legacy is that its sometimes small symbolic acts that create a meaningful society and in his dress he gave us a sense of pride. He united us and made us proud to be from the African continent.

By wearing a shirt, Madiba was telling us that he was going to change us all...all the institutions, all the ingrained meaningless protocols, break down all the barriers between us:

Long live! Long live! (The legacy)

18 November - 24 January