Wati ventures into textile designing

A visitor to Africa is ordinarily most impressed at first by textiles. In Malawi, for instance, the tremendous variety, beauty, flamboyance, colours, textures, elegance and style are all immediately striking.

Women and men sometimes store impressive amount of cloth as well as finished clothing.

This passion for beautiful textiles is the result of many centuries of development and of considerable investment in time, energy, enterprise, ingenuity among others into one technical activity; cloth-making. Far and away the most important fibre used in Malawian textile production has been cotton – and it has been used well for years.

Recently, many people are so much into African prints and in fact, it is seemingly out of fashion for someone to have a wardrobe with no outfits of such. The sad part though of this fashion trend is that much of the fabrics used are imported from countries such as Zambia, DRC, Tanzania, Nigeria and Ghana just to mention a few.

And when the name Watipaso Kulemeka, better known as Wati P is mentioned, it rings the bell of Big Brother Africa.

The young man together with his cousin, Nafe, represented Malawi at the season 7 of the reality show.

But now, Wati is back wearing a new different cap altogether as he is now running a fashion project up until 2019.

With his inborn artistic skills, Wati has designed a tribal based cloth which he intends to print and tailor in a project that is budget for K300 000.

“For the past few months, I have been researching on Malawi’s fashion scene especially designing and what I have found out lacking is that much as we have a number of fashion designers who i must say are doing a good job, we do not have designers who are making textiles or fabrics.

“Sadly though, the prints being used are in fact imported into Malawi yet we can have and yes we have locally done fabrics even better than what we are buying outside the country. What they do is use fabrics done by others and in fact mainly not done locally. I have therefore, designed my own cotton fabric called GTM wax,” explained Wati in an interview.

A sketch of the fabric, drawn on a piece of paper that Wati wants to be printed before the end of the month, shows an interesting and detailed textile, tailor-made for both men and women of all age ranges including children.

“It’s a cloth that depicts tribal insurgence with so much tribal influences. Each chitenje will produce half the male and female side of the design. The male side of the cloth will have eight shields with embedded proteas relating to the different tribes the Ngoni’s encountered after being chased out of Matebeleland by Shaka Zulu.

“The female version will be absolutely detailed, with structural designs and nice intricate designs of prints that look like beads.

“With this fabric, I am also targeting the Southern African market hence focusing much on the tribal aspect. It’s a western fusion with African staff, it is a Chitenje for all age groups and can be cut, mixed or blended with anything,” he explained.

While Wati is done with the designing of the fabric, first on his plans in terms of promoting his baby is the forth coming Lake of Stars Festival in Mangochi which takes place from September 26 to 28. His target is to have the cloth out before the festival.

“I am done with all the details of the fabric and right now, I am waiting for my private promoter to support me with money for printing and starting up of tailoring of the Chitenje. So far, I have identified Mapeto DWS to print it and as a start, I am looking at having 100 metres with people buying it at K10 000,” he said enthusiastically.

He has joined hands with fellow BBA ex-housemate Felica Susan Ngoma, who is now into fashion designing, to be tailoring on his behalf.

Explained Wati: “If I had time, I would have gone into full time tailoring. However, I want to concentrate into making more sketches of different designed outfits since I also want to work with other fashion designers in Malawi. So all those who want me to create a sketch of any design with my cloth, Felicia will be doing the tailoring.”

Textiles in general, carry a far greater importance than one might expect. Textiles carry an assortment of meanings and values, including wealth, status and office.

As if to prove a point that he is serious into the fashion business, Wati has drawn over 250 sketches of different outfits for his GTM Wax label and others. Twenty minutes is enough for the young man to come up with a flawless sketch of a design. But coming up with a absolute, all inclusive and watertight design of his cloth took Wati one week.

“I know a lot of people cannot take this seriously but I can design anything as long as it’s not little components of a phone. I have been designing or creating things since I was young,” he mused boastfully.

So far, Wati says has not heard any individual who has designed a chitenje from a scratch save for Khalidwe wear who get blank fabrics and paint them with different designs and prints.

Once the GTM wax is out, Wati moves into his next big fashion project which for now he could not shed more light.

Since put of Big Brother Africa fame in 2012, Wati has been doing part time architectural work. Mid next year, he is planning to go back to school to finish his studies to be a chartered architecture.

As for his cousin, who is three weeks younger, Nafe, is in Ireland doing Business Administration studies since December 2013.