Madiba shirt


A Madiba shirt is a loose-fitting silk shirt, usually adorned in a bright and colourful print. It became known in the 1990s, when Nelson Mandela—then elected President of South Africa—added the item to his regular attire. Mandela popularised this type of shirt, elevating the seemingly casual garment to formal situations.

Design

A form of casual wear, Madiba shirts are loose-fitting, usually worn without a necktie and untucked from trousers. It is very similar to Indonesian batik clothing and generally made of cotton or silk patterned with vivid colours. Mandela was said to prefer earthier tones for the shirt, though Madiba shirts with bright colors have endured in popularity.

History

There are many who claim the Madiba shirt's invention. Yusuf Surtee, a clothing-store owner who supplied Mandela with outfits for decades, said the Madiba design is based on Mandela's request for a shirt like Indonesian president Suharto's. Fashion designer Desré Buirski presented this type of shirt to Mandela as a gift on 7 May 1994 by getting it to a bodyguard during a visit to a Cape Town synagogue; Mandela wore the shirt to the dress rehearsal for his presidential inauguration. Sonwabile Ndamase said he "was the first to do it" in 1990.
Mandela regularly wore this type of shirt, which became known as "Madiba shirts" after Mandela's Xhosa clan name. The affectionate name became linked to the shirts when Mandela wore them to many business and political meetings during and after his tenure as President of South Africa.

Legacy

Within the clothing industry, Mandela's willingness to wear the casual attire—he eventually owned dozens of the shirts—marked a new style of international business dress. In a broader sense, the fashion choice can be read as a signal of "friendly" regime change away from strict formality and toward greater acceptance. It can also be argued that, throughout his life, Mandela's fashion was a significant part of his public image: in the 1950s, he dressed in sophisticated clothes; during the Rivonia Trial in 1963–64, he brought out Xhosa traditions with a leopard-skin kaross; and after his release from prison, he wore the colourful Madiba shirt often. In 2013, art historian Lize van Robbroeck wrote:
Madiba shirts are popular among tourists to South Africa, South African sportspeople, and Tanzanian men.