Pollen Eixab
Passionate about fashion and textiles since the tender age of eight, local designer Zebora //Gowases-Endjala will be hosting a Traditional Damara Dress fashion show on 3 September in Windhoek.
The show promises to be a colourful array of prints, patterns, designs and styles as well as an honorary salute to the Damara culture and tradition.
One hundred dresses will be on display – all designed and produced by //Gowases-Endjala.
The 49-year-old fashion designer, who specialises in wedding and matric farewell dresses and now also contemporary Damara dresses, told VIBEZ! she is determined to introduce younger Damara women to their cultural and traditional way of dressing.
Since sponsoring the 2021 Miss Namibia competition with Damara traditional dresses for the 15 finalists, the demand for //Gowases-Endjala’s dresses has grown, inspiring her to branch further into different styles of designing patchwork and combining materials with different patterns and textures.
She describes her designs as “fashionable and sophisticated clothes made with love, having a modern feel to draw in younger generations”.
//Gowases-Endjala said she took on the task of organising the fashion show after aunty Mariane Thanises came up with the idea a while back during a meeting with a group of younger Damara women to impart knowledge about their culture. “Our older generation was not much interested in the traditional dresses anymore and somehow neglected to wear them, as they became more westernised,” she explained.
Her desire to make more Damara dresses was also fuelled after she started dressing First Lady Monica Geingos in Damara outfits.
She said “because showing is better than telling”,
the fashion will take place in two categories: a modern and vintage section.
The modern segment of the show will provide a platform for younger audiences to see their traditional dresses made in such a way that will draw them in and inspire them. Then there will be the vintage part of the show, which will pay tribute to the designs of older generations.
“You feel like royalty wearing these clothes,” she said proudly. The fashion show will be held at Palm Tree Park in front of the Windhoek train station from 11h00 to 20h00.
Tickets cost N$350.
– polleneixab@gmail.com