Ankara Prints in the Afro-Brazilian Diaspora

Recreating Meaning

Smiling brightly and visibly moved, Anielle Franco  stood before the crowd and delivered her inaugural speech at Palácio do Planalto, in the capital Brasília. The younger sister of Marielle Franco, an activist and politician murdered in 2018, rose to the challenge and became the Minister of Racial Equality in 2023 despite her pain. For this occasion, Franco chose a dress made of “African prints.” The pattern was familiar to me. In 2013, I worked as a designer for a small textile factory in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and I remember a client bringing this pattern as a reference for an order. At the time, it was fashionable in America for fast-fashion brands to produce garments with prints inspired by Aztec geometry. A few years later, in 2021, during my fieldwork in Nigeria for my dissertation on ankara – the name Nigerians give to African prints – I saw the same pattern, along with some variations sold in the markets as ankara. Without any changes in its materiality, the print that once referenced Aztec patterns had now come to signify African patterns.

Ankara is made by printing resin paste on cotton and then dying with indigo. European companies first developed ankara during the 19th century as an imitation of Javanese batiks and exported it to the colonies of Gold Coast in West Africa. Later, they incorporated iconography of West and East African art, particularly textiles, into the Javanese batik and European design principles. Nowadays, screen rollers often replace the resin and indigo dyeing processes, but the imagery remains the same.

Other West African countries refer to ankara by various names, such as pagne, capulanas and wax hollandaise. Despite its colonial past, ankara has become a staple material in West Africa. The prints were seamlessly incorporated into many cultural practices and are worn on different occasions. Consequently, due to its ubiquity, images of ankara from West African fashion circulate globally, embodying ankara’s connection with the continent.

Ankara fabrics in a shop in Brazil. Photo: Dandara Maia

The swearing-in ceremony was not the first time Anielle Franco had worn ankara. In 2022, I attended the Festival Marielle, an event with artistic activities, panel discussions and musical concerts in memory and honor of her activist sister on the fourth year of her death. Franco chose a short strapless dress with puffed sleeves and an abstract ankara print in pink and orange tones for the occasion. It was a very emotional day, and other attendees, mostlyleftists and activists, also dressed in ankara. On a panel, Franco spoke out about how painful it is for Black women to fight for equality and justice while feeling unsafe. After the panel concluded, she playfully mentioned that she would change her dress to denim shorts, better suited for dancing, as the concerts were about to begin. Franco seamlessly transitioned from the seriousness of political engagement to a more informal mood, ready to dance to the raw, vibrant beats of Rio de Janeiro funk music. This shift in tone was reflected in her clothes: the ankara fabric symbolized her commitment to racial equality and justice, while the denim shorts embodied the freedom and spontaneity of the dance floor.

Eduardo Suplicy and Anielle Franco dressing ankara at the Festival Marielle. 2022. Photo: Dandara Maia

Franco deliberately chose ankara on both occasions, for she believes ankara is political, a “reverence for our ancestry, for the memory, history and culture of black people that have been distorted, violated and made invisible for so many centuries, which is directly related to the construction and racial inequality in this country [Brazil].” For many Afro-Brazilians like Franco, ankara is a medium to make Black consciousness and pride visible. She associated ankara with the African continent from which Afro-Brazilian ancestors were forcibly brought under the slave trade system, as well as with the racial struggle and solidarity necessary to overcome today’s challenges of a hierarchical, racialized society. Colonization and slavery left many wounds unhealed, one of which is the constrained notion of beauty, historically controlled by whiteness, which has led to an understanding of the need to improve and fix the Black body. Black activists have contested this notion over the decades. As a result, racialization and beauty became topics discussed side by side, with fashion and clothing at the forefront.

Fashion is an avenue through which this proud Black body wishes to express its connections with the metaphorical territory of Africa. Therefore, clothes perceived as traditional or ancestral become essential tools of self-making and expression. Ankara arrived in Brazil at the beginning of the 2000s, and it coincided with a wave of racial awareness among young Afro-Brazilians following the “blackening the body” movements of the 70s. Its popularity grows from the perception of cloth as a material connection with Afro-Brazilian ancestry, namely Africa.

A magical aura surrounds ankara because of how West Africans appropriated it. The people I discussed ankara with would carefully explain that ankara had many meanings or specific occasional uses in Africa. Indeed, ankara patterns received names from market sellers, and, in some countries, such as Togo, may be linked to specific proverbs. They can also “constitute a substitute speech act for a woman, exhibiting messages with highly charged and (for her) unmistakable meanings.” However, names and proverbs are not the only way to invest ankara with what we call meaning. Other modes of appropriations equally make ankara “matter”. In Nigeria, some patterns may be used on specific occasions, such as a wedding or a funeral, to visualize familial and amicable bonds (aso ebi) or mark ethnic affiliations.

Recreating stories

Although many of the people I have interviewed  wished to show me that they were aware of the meaningful dimension of ankara, they would often admit to not being fully aware of those meanings. In some cases, their lack of knowledge about the names of certain patterns or the specific occasions on which they were worn in Africa made them feel insecure about how to show proper respect for the cloth. These meanings invested in ankara become inevitably fragmented and occasionally obscured as the cloth circulates across time and space. Names are forgotten, translated into other languages or lose their connection to their origins.

Anielle Franco’s stylist, Thayâne Alves, commissioned the dress for the ceremony from Eric Mahugnon and Fernanda Carvalho. The couple owns a shop at the famous Mercadão de Madureira, a market renowned for its diverse array of Afro-Brazilian goods, foods and religious artifacts. Eric, who immigrated from Benin, opened his store, Ayedjé, in collaboration with his partner Fernanda some months before my visit. According to Eric, some clients identify with African culture and purchase the ready-to-wear pieces designed by Fernanda. Other clients are devotees of Afro-Brazilian religions, namely Candomblé and Umbanda, who visit the market to buy items for their religious duties. For Eric, a lack of awareness persists among many Brazilians regarding the prints and their names and West African cultural practices, including ankara. Many of the ankara patterns popular in Benin and Nigeria do not sell as frequently in Madureira as I would have expected. Nevertheless, the fragmented knowledge concerning ankara does not diminish its significance in Brazil. The scarcity of information about the uses and meanings of ankara in West Africa leads to new interpretations of ankara generating different meanings in the diaspora.

Ayedjé store at the Mercadão de Madureira. 2022. Photo: Dandara Maia

The print that Thayâne Alves chose for Franco was not one of those popular patterns that have names or are associated with proverbs or any cultural practice. It was the print that I, in 2011, perceived as a reference to Aztec patterning. Not surprisingly, printed and sold as ankara, it was turned into a reference to Africanness. Alves interpreted the straight lines as authority and strength and the circles as movement and adaptability. The cloak further referenced royalty and African ancestry, which “was also imprinted in the braided hair and handmade earrings”  in the outfit.

It is common for Afro-Brazilians to refer to Africa as a space in the past, the birthplace of great civilizations of kings and queens. This interpretation seeks to counter the pervasive mainstream media portrayals of Africa as a place of poverty and scarcity. Patricia Pinho  refers to this imagined Africa as the myth of “Mama Africa.” According to the author, Africa resides in the fertile realm of Afro-descendants’ imaginary as a magical entity that supposedly lives in every Black person, connected to the past and the ancestors. However, Africa remains loyal to its present-day descendants beyond a geographic reference. This imagined Africa is deeply connected to how Afro-Brazilians manipulate their appearance. Mama Africa feeds the body and “brings into being the inherent African character, based on the idea that for a black appearance, there is a corresponding black essence,” according to Pinho.  This essence is made concrete through materials associated with Africa, such as ankara.

Not only is ankara a material that comes from Africa and can hold meanings, but for Afro-Brazilians, ankara has the potential to mean Africa itself, a special property that other fabrics may not possess. Afro-Brazilians appropriate ankara addressing the need to visually and publicly assert Black pride and reclaim African heritage within a society that has historically marginalized Black identity. Politicizing fashion by incorporating ankara challenges the racism embedded in beauty standards, which have scrutinized and constrained the expression of African cultural references to Black bodies.

Additionally, ankara plays a role in the (re) Africanization of Candomblé houses, legitimizing cloth imported from Africa as the ideal African identity of liturgical attire to resist colonial influence and reinforce African cultural and spiritual connection. Candomblé devotees, who have acknowledged the increasing incorporation of ankara into their liturgical attire, have told me the same story as Eric. They look for prints that may fairly represent the various Orixás, Yoruba deities, carefully choosing the corresponding colors and motifs that reflect the Orixá’s correct associations. One example is the print known as “Fly Whisk.” Anne Grosfilley notes in her book on African wax print textiles that the Dutch company Vlisco developed the print in 1950, representing a fly swatter made of a horse’s mane, a symbol of the Akan people’s chiefdom spread over Ghana and the Ivory Coast. The Yoruba similarly use this type of whisk, the ìrùkèrè, as a regalia and symbol of political power and leadership. Claudia Florido, a tailor specialized in Candomblé attire, also interpreted this motif as ìrùkèrè, thereby referencing the pattern to the Orixás Iansã and Oxóssi.

In Brazil, fashion makers and consumers believe clothes are potent statements that transform self-esteem. The association of ankara with the Orixás enhances this power, enchanting it with the metaphysical energy of the Yoruba deities, endowing it with the capacity to protect against racial discrimination. Thus, most fashion produced with ankara in Brazil is based on political principles. As Anielle Franco and many other Afro-Brazilians have shown, choosing to dress in ankara during significant moments transforms the cloth into armor, protecting against racism, reclaiming ancestry and “healing the wounds” inflicted by the racist gaze of modernity. Although ankara carries meanings in Africa, these meanings often become fragmented when the cloth travels to Brazil. Afro-Brazilians then reinterpret these patterns, embedding them with new significance that reflects their culture and the fight against racism.

Dandara Maia is a Ph.D. student from Brazil at the University of Bayreuth. Her interests encompass fashion and material culture in Africa and African-Diaspora. Her current research focuses on the image agency of wax print fabrics from a decolonial perspective.