By Yunus S Saliu
The Gambia fashion designers facilitated by the National Centre for Arts and Culture were among thousands of people who converged at Lome capacity of Togo to participate in the just concluded International Exhibition of African Textiles (SITA), from 4-6th November 2022.
The Gambia delegation was led to the international textile fair by Jarata Mahmoud, a staff of the National Centre for Arts and Culture.
The just concluded fair marked the 8th edition of the International Exhibition of African Textiles (SITA) and was unveiled by the Togo Minister of Culture and Tourism Kossi Lamadoko.
Like other participating countries, The Gambia participated in the international parade of traditional and modern African outfits, an exhibition sale of African textiles, an e-commerce training workshop, a fashion show for the general public, and the night of cotton all part of the activities as scheduled by the organiser whereby over 400 textile actors from 40 African countries participated.
Commenting on the textile fair, Hassoum Ceesay, Director General of the National Centre for Arts and Culture, disclosed that the Gambia was invited to the fair by the organiser to send designers active in textiles to attend and theme for this year’s fair is Lioncloth and Youth Empowerment.
“The Gambia delegates, at the fair displayed the best of The Gambia fashion and textiles including the traditional hand-woven clothes called rabal,” the NCAC boss disclosed.
Attending the fair, according to him, will give a big boost to the use of traditional handmade clothes in the country, and also it is a good indication of the work that the NCAC under the guidance of the Minister of Tourism and Culture is doing to promote the Gambia arts and culture at the international level.
He added that there are also plans to make sure that the Gambia filmmakers, writers among others are also invited abroad, and presently, a Gambia writer in the name of Ms. Ramatoullahi Outhman, is in Djibouti taking part in an international writers’ conference.”
DG Hassoum thanked SITA for their invitation and assured them of continuous collaboration.