Exhibitions

The Women Dandies of The DRC: Dressing Dapper As Gendered Resistance In Central Africa

Curated by Sally Howard | Photographs by Junior D. Kannah 
Sponsored by Nilofer Naqvi, Ph.D.

October 18-December 13, 2024

Gallery Event

Reception

Monday, October 28, 4:30 - 6:30 p.m.
JoAnn Mazzella Murphy '98H Arts Center 

Artist Talk

Tuesday, October 29, noon
Murphy Auditorium

The Br. Kenneth Chapman Gallery presents, The Women Dandies of The DRC: Dressing Dapper As Gendered Resistance In Central Africa. 

This exhibition will be on view from October 18 - December 13, 2024 and documents the life and style of the sapeuses, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s woman dandy subculture, through textile exhibits and the reportage photography of Kinshasa-based photographer Junior D. Kannah. It began life in 2018 as a feature collaboration between journalist Sally Howard and Kannah for Marie Claire and has since evolved into a traveling popular academic exhibition.

The sapeuses are a recent offshoot of the sapeurs, a male sartorial resistance movement that blossomed in Brazzaville, Kinshasa’s neighboring city (now capital of the Republic of Congo) in the 1920s, when the former city was part of the colonial bloc of French Equatorial Africa. The sapeurs – or Société des Ambianceurs et des PersonnesÉlégantes (the Society of Tastemakers and Elegant People) – sought to resist French and Belgian colonial rule by adopting and pastiching the ‘master’s clothes’, with prominent sapeurs also being key players in influential Parisian anti-colonial pressure group L’Amicale.

The sapeur style and gentlemanly code of honor was formalized in the mid-20th century under the leadership of ‘dapper’ Papa Wemba, a rumba artist who was known for his taste in dazzling white suits and monochrome spats. Bemba influenced a later generation of sapeurs who rose to political power through the turbulent years of the Congolese and continental wars and whose subculture has now entered the mainstream (controversial president of the DRC, Joseph Kabila, is a self-confessed sapeur).

The female answer to the sapeurs, les sapeuses, have emerged in the past decade as young female Kinshasans view the inherited traditions of la sape as a method of escape from rigid gendered roles and expectations. For some sapeuses, who traditionally dress in masculine suits and accessories imported via the Congolese diaspora in Belgium and France, la sape is a return to pre-colonial modes of strong African femininity; for others the movement, with its sapeuse solidarity clubs and rich socio-historical heritage, is a means of operating as a queer woman in a nation and era in which homophobia is rife. The Women Dandies, first staged as an academic exhibition at SOAS, The University of London in 2018, but now back with fresh photographs and sapeuse stories as this subculture evolves, will run in the first-floor space at The Heritage Gallery at The Naval College, The University of Greenwich from March.

Sally Howard is the exhibition’s curator and a journalist and author who writes about social affairs and feminism in the global south. She is author of books including the Home Stretch (Why We Need to Come Clean about Who Does the Dishes), Atlantic Books, 2021; The Kama Sutra Diaries, Hachette, 2014; and the upcoming Vagina Inc., which explores the risks and rewards of femtech in global context.

Junior D. Kannah is a Kinshasa-born photographer for news agencies including Associated Press. Kannah’s work documents the lives and culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighboring Republic of Congo, with his photographs often showcasing the vibrant spirit and resilience of the Congolese people, but also conveying the country’s struggles, with civil war, corrupt governance and hardship.

Past Exhibitions