Plus Sizes - African Dashiki
Bold and Sensible
Another colorful and bold look for the plus size woman is the
dashiki. A dashiki is a loose-fitting, pullover top sewn from
colorful, African-inspired cotton prints or from solid color
fabrics, often with patch pockets and embroidery at the neckline
and cuffs.

This Afrocentric dress uses a number of textiles. Authentic
Ghanaian kente cloth, batik, mud cloth, indigo cloth, and, to a
lesser extent, bark cloth are the traditional fabrics used.
Dashikis are now also made in plain cottons, polyesters, and
glittery novelty fabrics and tiger, leopard and zebra
prints.
“Dashiki” is a loanword from the West African Yoruba term
danshiki, which refers to a short, sleeveless tunic worn by men.
The Yoruba borrowed the word from the Hausa “dan ciki” (literally
“underneath”), which refers to a short tunic worn by males under
larger robes. Similar tunics found in Dogon burial caves in Mali
date to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Yoruba danshiki,
was a work garment, originally sewn from hand-woven strip cloth. It
has deep-cut armholes with pockets below. Such tunics of
hand- or machine-woven textiles (with or without sleeves) are worn
with matching trousers as street clothes.
In the 1960s, the dashiki appeared in the American ethnic
fashion inventory, along with other Afrocentric clothing styles,
possibly from the example of African students and African diplomats
at the United Nations in New York.
In the United States the term “dashiki” entered American English
circa 1968 (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 2000).
Following the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the popularity of
Afrocentric clothing grew along with pride in racial and cultural
heritage among Americans of African descent. First worn as an
indicator of black unity and pride, the dashiki peaked in
popularity when white counterculture hippies, who set the tone for
many of the fashion adaptations of the late sixties, included the
colorful shirts and dresses in their wardrobes.
Worn by increasing numbers of young white Americans attracted to
the bright colors and ornate embroidery, the dashiki lost much of
its black political identity and epitomized the larger scene of
changing American society. By the late 1960s, American retailers
imported cheap dashikis manufactured in India, Bangladesh, and
Thailand. Most of these loose-fitting shirts and caftans were sewn
from cotton “kanga” prints, a bordered rectangle printed with
symmetrical bold colorful designs, often with central
motifs.
A unisex garment, the American dashiki varies from a sleeveless
tunic to the more common pullover shirt or caftan with short or
dangling bat sleeves. Both sexes wear the shirt, and women wear
short or full-length dashiki tops. Worn with carefully
selected ethnic jewelry, the dashiki outfit is a
knockout.

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