Cloth for a robe decorated with diagonal rows of hearts, diamonds, clubs, and other designs made up of white dots on a purple background.
This looks like a piece of bazin cloth – particularly popular in urban areas. The cloth is soaked in heavy amounts of starch to lend rigidity to the fabric. When worn, this makes the wearer appear larger (and therefore wealthier). It also gives an aesthetic sheen to the garment. Bazin cloth is used for ‘boubous’ – worn usually by wealthy individuals and for special occasions. Because the fabric is so rigid at the start, it is physically ‘hit’ with wooden hammer-type utensils to soften the cloth. Men carry out this work and can be heard ‘hitting’ the cloth in urban and residential areas of Bamako.
