No. BINGBA or batakari (made from FUGU), is not a blouse. And it’s not a shirt either. Western clothing ideas have a binary. Africans don’t. We have ‘other’ things.
I could understand why anyone, even people who have studied fashion in school, would call this a blouse. We learn that blouses are flowy, shapely, has no placket, few or no buttons, may have gathers or smocking, sleeve variations, not rigid, no collars etc. the batakari has these features. So on a surface level and to someone who has no eyes for weight and texture, this is a blouse.
To learn about this particular style is to understand that, the “flow” is functional rather than stylistic. And the “flow” comes from multiple GUSSETS inserted from mid-session to the hem. And gussets are very masculine as it’s been put in men’s clothes worldwide and for centuries to allow easy movement, horse riding, etc. the gussets in batakari is created specifically to aid dancing and performance of kings and chiefs. (Read on damba, takai etc.) AND to travel easily on Carmel caravans. eventually these gussets were also adopted by southerners to aid in WAR. “The volumes acted as bullet proof” and that’s how it became batakari. (Won’t go further on that)
So here; it falls under KAFTAN. Every West African ethnicity who engaged in trans-Saharan trade, East African & horse civilisation, Land of Punt, Kingdom of Kush etc, has a specific rendition of the kaftan. That was the travel getup. A quick way to know is to check the neckline and sleeves. Some other popular renditions are the jumpa, Dirac, boubou (bubu), pata-pata, babaringa, agbada, mbubb, etc. when you see these styles, it tells you their ancestors were engaged in some form of trade.
And this is why you should also stop calling it a smock. 😬 hear me out. Smocking is the method of gathering. Once again, when you see this outfit from afar, it looks like smocking. When you truly study it, you’d realise it’s not. The fullness is hours of work and strategically placed gussets stitched by hand. To call it smocking is to simplify it. This part is my opinion.
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