From Tree To Tailor

A Passion For Botanical-Based Fashion Leads To The Sacred And Rare Bark Cloth Of Southern Uganda.

- Justin Fornal

Two of my greatest obsessions are textiles and death. For several years I’ve divided my time equally between hunting down rare indigenous fabrics and documenting funerary rites and rituals. I never imagined the two would come together so fashionably. A few years ago I met a tailor named Mario, who specialises in one-of a-kind designs for bespoke men’s clothing. Creating a truly exquisite item of clothing goes beyond the cut or the style; it must begin with the fabric itself. The raw materials should have a legacy before ever touching the tailor’s hands. Throughout history the pelts of animals have often been worn to represent luxury, status, or spiritual connection. I wanted to find a botanical-based textile that exuded that same power and mystique while leaving our animal friends to keep their own coats. Enter the bark cloth of the Baganda people.

The Baganda of southern Uganda are the country’s largest ethnic group. Since ancient times they’ve been making a venerated fabric by pounding the inner bark of the mutuba tree (Ficus natalensis). This laborious process produces a stunning cognacbrown material held in such high spiritual regard that seven sheets of it are wrapped around a deceased Baganda’s body before burial. It is believed that this material alone has the power to transport the soul to the land of the Baganda’s ancestors.

Bark cloth’s association with death and the afterlife explains why it’s primarily worn day-to-day by Baganda witches and spiritual mediums, who consider it a magnet for ghosts. Some mediums make special headbands with pieces of bark cloth covering their eyes. These arboreal veils work as a window into the world of the dead.