Lately I’ve been working with dolls; making my own and sewing clothes for the ones you can buy in stores.
I had mixed results with both endeavors, but I think I’m finally getting the hang of it.

Of course, my focus is on Ethiopian clothes.
The problem is that unless you live in Ethiopia, there is no much access to detailed images of traditional or modern Ethiopian clothes.
For example I  haven’t been able to find a book, and much less patterns, that have detail descriptions and pictures of costumes.
The only book I have is “Ethiopian Costumes” published by the Ethiopian Tourism Commission in 1980 (quite a while ago) with very little information.

There is always Google, but still, it’s not enough for me.
I don’t have the cultural background or access from here in the US to the real dresses so I can copy the models and add details to the dresses to make them more like the originals.

The first thing I made is an Ethiopian girl school uniform like the ones you can see children wearing around in the streets of Addis.
This particular one is for an 18 inch doll, which is much more easy to sew than Barbie clothes:

The classic white shirt, green skirt (or pants) and jacket. I added a backpack so she can carry her notebooks and pencils to school.
Everything is handmade by me.

I bought her for only $15 at a craft store (comparing to the $115 base price of an American Girl doll). She came without shoes and with just a thin tunic over her body for modesty. She’s turned out to be a pretty nice doll for the price!

Regarding my experiment sewing my own, I made two small soft cloth African American dolls:
This girl on the left with the big afro is Beza, and wears casual daily clothes. The one on the right with cornrows is Roma wearing her Ethiopian school uniform:

My next project is to design Ethiopian clothes for a couple of African American 18 inch dolls that I bought recently; a girl and a boy that I will use as models. I have a lot of ideas!

I would like to ask for your help to find books, magazines, detailed pictures  o patterns of Ethiopian clothes. If you have seen any of those, I will appreciate the information!

AliciA

Enkutatash Celebrations for 2017 so far…

Ethiopian Community of Maryland, US:
Ethiopian Day Festival, September 3rd, 2017, 2 to 9 PM, Civic Center Plaza, Silver Springs, Maryland

Ethiopian Community Of Dallas, Texas, US:
Ethiopia Day 2017, September 2-3, 2017 – Plano Centre, E Spring Creek Pkwy, Plano TX, US

Ethiopian Community of Chicago, US:  
Ethiopian Festival - September 9th, 2017 from 12 to 5 PM – St Andrew Orthodox Chrurch, 5649 N Sheridan, Chicago Illinois

Ethiopian Community in Seattle, US:
Ethiopian New Year – September 10th , 2017 from 1 to 6 PM – 8323 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA

Little Ethiopia Los Angeles, US:
The 16th Annual Little Ethiopia Cultural Street Festival – September 10th, 2017 from 12 to 8 PM – Between Olympic and Whitworth, Los Angeles, CA

Enkutatash at Elsas’s Ethiopian Restaurant:
Enkutatash at Elsas’s - September 10, 2017 , 5-7 pm - Elsa’s Ethiopian Restaurant 8016 Santa Fe Drive, Overland Park, KS 66204

Wayna:
Ethiopian New Year with Wayna – September 8th, 2017 12 AM show – Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St, New York, NY

Ethiopian Community of San Jose, US:
San Jose New Year’s Party – September 9th, 2017, 8:30 PM, 2500 Masonic Center, San Jose, CA

Ethiopian Community of San Jose, US:
Ethiopian New Year Celebration – September 10th, 2017, 1 to 7:30 PM, Guadalupe River Park, San Jose, CA

City of Alexandria, Virginia, US:
Ethiopian New Year Celebration - September 9th, 2017 12 to 5 PM,
1605 Cameron St, Alexandria, VA

Heber Ethiopia, Portland, OR, US
Ethiopian New Year Celebration – September 10th, 2017, 2 to 8 PM, Alberta Park – 1905 NE Killingsworth St. Portland, OR, US

Ethiopian Community in Ireland:
Ethiopian New Year’s Celebration 2010 – September 16th, 2017, 1 to 9 PM,
Naomh Ólaf CLG, Sports and Social Centre Holly Ave, Dublin, Ireland

You can add events in the comments section.
And Happy New Year!

AliciA

I’ve started thinking about making dolls again and out of curiosity I decided to check what was out there for sale on Etsy.
I typed “black doll” in the search box…

To my surprise, a percentage of the dolls in the results were, well, clearly racist. Some of them were listed as “vintage”. Selling racist items is per se pretty horrible, but on top of that most of these dolls weren’t even “vintage”, but new dolls made to look old by people profiting from racist stereotypes. Others were listed as “primitive”, but were mostly also racist dolls with a ragged look. Another usual misleading tag is “collectible”.
Another surprise was finding people selling patterns to make these dolls, not caring about perpetuating racism.

This is not creative freedom. Or freedom of speech. This is hating, diminishing, laughing at, despising human beings with dark skin. The worst part is that if these items are for sale, it means there are people out there willing to buy them.
And I don’t believe that the sellers don’t know about depiction of racism, not in 2017.
Who buys these items? Do the buyers show these dolls proudly in their houses? Do children play with these monstrous creations? Who would want to collect these things? Why Etsy allows these items to be sold and profit from racism too?

Links:

Why Is Etsy Still Profiting from Racist ‘Nostalgia’? Jezebel
The ‘right’ to sell golliwogs is not something we should be fighting for in 2016 The Guardian
Golliwog Wikipedia

AliciA