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The living fashion history of the Kaapse Klopse

by | Jan 2, 2025

For over a century, the streets of Cape Town have become an explosion of song, dance and colourful costumes on the 2nd of January. Tweede Nuwe Jaar (Afrikaans for ‘Second New Year’) is an annual minstrel festival originating from a history of slavery and oppression, celebrating Cape Town’s uniquely creole-coloured culture. Dress provides a visual language for cultural identity and one of the most distinct aspects of the minstrel festival is the flamboyant and theatrical ensembles worn by the performing troupes, known as the Kaapse Klopse. Every year, over 20,000 performers entertain crowds in bold costumes which include an amalgamation of references from 18th and 19th-century Western fashion, American minstrel and carnival costumes, military uniforms and even contemporary brands such as Shoprite and Louis Vuitton.

The festival, known as the Cape Town Street Parade, dates back to the early 20th century but harkens to a tradition much older than that. During the colonial period, enslaved people were given the day off and allowed to celebrate the new year, offered clothing, tobacco and money from their slaveholders. Between 1652 and 1808, the then-Dutch Cape Colony saw over 60,000 people placed into slavery, descending from several Asian and African regions such as India, China, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mozambique and Angola.

“The conditions of enslaved people varied but were painful and difficult across the board. Torn from their families and cultures, stripped of their names and identities, they were made to work in a foreign place under relentless conditions,” says Cape Town-based heritage practitioner, Jordan Pieters. “And yet, in the face of these atrocities, enslaved people forged new cultural expressions, drawing from their diverse heritages and shared experiences of survival and resistance.”

The past few years have brought into question what exactly constitutes coloured culture–much of the most reductive discourse inspired by American reactions to singer Tyla’s ethnicity and identity. Of course, there is no singular coloured culture, with differences in language and customs varying across regions but for those in the Cape, at least, Tweede Nuwe Jaar is emblematic of how an incredibly diverse and oppressed group built traditions and customs on their own terms.

According to Zaghrah Benjamin, a student and activist with generations of family involved in the Klopse, “It’s an in-your-face way of saying, ‘Okay, coloured people do actually have culture and roots that have been here for years.’” Both Zaghrah’s parents have generational ties to the Klopse with her father having been a performer. Every year since she was two years old, Zaghrah and her family have attended the festival.

“In various communities across Cape Town, the Klopse is an integral part of the community and is even a generational activity where various generations of a single family have been involved in the Klopse. Children join the Klopse from a young age and benefit greatly from the skills imparted such as the ability to play a musical instrument. People often join the Klopse based on the troupes their family members belonged to or the troupes which are active in their community.”

Its cultural significance in the present is one of the few moments in the calendar where communities on the Cape Flats are known for something other than socio-economic hardship and violence

“The Kaapse Klopse remains an important tether to the Cape Town that was and which has been removed from our collective consciousness,” adds Pieters. “The Klopse is a historical reminder of who we are and what our ancestors endured by colonial forces. Its cultural significance in the present is one of the few moments in the calendar where communities on the Cape Flats are known for something other than socio-economic hardship and violence. The opportunities and camaraderie it offers to young people and children is an important part of the remaining social fabric.”

Costume making for the Klopse is big business, allowing for the employment of many skilled patternmakers, cutters and sewists in the Cape. Pieters says, “The costumes of the different troupes are in themselves a competition to see who has the best outfits.” But where do these costumes come from?

A 19th-century illustration of freed slaves showcases them marching with flags and the ghoema drum, dressed in two-piece suits, similar to what’s exhibited in the current day. Before the mid-20th century, Klopse costumes typically involved top hats and tailcoats, thought to have been handed down by slaveholders. It’s also believed that Klopse dressed to emulate their slaveholders in order to mock them, even adorning painted faces to avoid retribution and punishment. These painted faces also took inspiration from American minstrel performers where white entertainers donned blackface in their racist caricatures of African-Americans.

Some of the face painting borders into the uncanny and mystical, such as the Apache troupe Zaghrah says references Native American traditions. “ Their costume is less coordinated and distressed on purpose.  They wear masks of devils or baboons. It’s basically the evil groups.  They’ll have an American flag and then have the drum sounding and they’ll just scare the children.”

There aren’t many images of these performers online. Their description is reminiscent of African masquerade traditions across the continent, where elaborate and otherworldly dress is used in spiritual ceremonies and rituals to document histories, connect with ancestors or scare away evil spirits. Perhaps this may have been a way enslaved people of West and Central African descent were able to retain some of their native cultures in the Cape Colony. The lack of visual sources might also be attributed to this becoming a dwindling tradition according to Zaghrah, who mentions that groups like the Apache don’t generate profit as the Klopse troupes do, and the festival requires increased financial investment each year.

There are even instances in which families prioritise Klopse costumes over essentials such as school uniforms which Zagrah sees as a double-edged sword. “A lot of people would like to look down on that but it just shows that we have an investment in Tweede Nuwe Jaar. It’s a very serious thing. It’s not to say that we shouldn’t be prioritising education, but we should be prioritising culture as well.”

Many of these enslaved women became the bedrock of the textile manufacturing that’s still quintessential to Cape Town today, allowing another way in which the celebration honours ancestral contributions and culture

Previously, communities used to band together to raise funds required for costumes and gear. These costumes are typically collaborative projects with local seamstresses and tailors. “ It’s usually a local auntie who lives in the vicinity of where the clubs or band is from,” says Zaghrah. These women are provided with fabric from the various troupes and some are running operations that clothe thousands of performers every year. In the 17th and 18th centuries, many enslaved people were brought into the Cape Colony from India, Indonesia and China specifically for the long-running traditions of highly skilled needlework and dressmaking in their regions. Many of these enslaved women became the bedrock of the textile manufacturing that’s still quintessential to Cape Town today, allowing another way in which the celebration honours ancestral contributions and culture.

Performers at the 2017 festival. Photography by Ashraf Hendricks via GroundUp

However, Zaghrah notes that the festival has become increasingly commercialised over the past years and might be in danger of losing those cultural ties. In 2023, the announcement that sports gambling organisation, Hollywoodbets would become the official sponsor of Tweede Nuwe Jaar was met with much controversy. The festival has since been renamed The Hollywoodbets Cape Town Street Parade following a R3.5 million deal.

Cape Town Minstrel Carnival Association chairperson Sedick Soeker addressed this in an interview with Daily Maverick: “What concerns us deeply is the fact that this event is being financially supported by Hollywoodbets, a gambling entity whose current dominance in the minstrel fraternity dishonours our heritage and undermines the struggles against oppression, colonialism, imperialism, slavery and the dark era of apartheid.”

“It’s more of a competition now than it is a celebration,” says Zaghrah.  ”I feel like the importance of why people are doing it is taken away.”

This commercialism has also affected the costumes. “ Last year I noticed a big shift in costumes. It was really shocking to me that some of the costumes had Louis Vuitton designs on them, obviously not original, and some of them had Gucci and Versace prints. But the structure of the clothing stayed the same.”

It is, of course, unavoidable that the minstrel festival will continue to change and adapt to the times, much in the same way our understanding of its history will continue too. “History is a living thing, built from multiple perspectives,” says Jordan. “Much of our history has been lost across the continent, and as such, we are left to put together what remains. We are also asked to remember the context of colonial records and archives when trying to understand people, moments, and the ideas of colonised peoples. The truth is somewhere between the tainted colonial record, the oral history traditions of the enslaved passed down through generations, and the voices that are completely missing.”

Cape Town, and Tweede Nuwe Jaar, remain, according to Jordan, “a prime example of the ways in which the blending of roots and heritages can create something wonderful and new.”

 

  • Tweede Nuwe Jaar has been postponed to Saturday 4 January this year, 2024
  • Feature image by Ashraf Hendricks via GroundUp
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