Clothes and Fashion
Senior 1 · English
Clothes and Fashion
Lesson 1 of 5
25 min
Let's begin
At a Rwandan wedding you can almost read the guest list from the clothes: the bride's friends in matching mushanana, the young cousins in bright kitenge, the uncles in dark suits. Ineza, an S1 student in Huye, went to her cousin's gusaba, the ceremony at which the groom's family asks the bride's family for permission to marry. Afterwards she described the guests for her school magazine, and she painted each one with adjectives.
Before you read: Think of the last celebration you went to: a wedding, a baptism, a graduation or Umuganura. Describe one person's clothes to your partner in a single sentence.
by Ineza Kamaliza, S1 B
Last Saturday my cousin Dusabe had her gusaba in a big garden in Huye. I sat in the second row, next to the drummers, so I could see every guest who arrived.
The first to arrive were Dusabe's bridesmaids. They walked in slowly, one behind the other, and they all wore beautiful long cream mushanana. The cloth was shiny and soft, like silk, and the long sash of each mushanana went over the left shoulder and hung down to the knee. Each girl had a thin white band around her forehead. When they sat down together on the sofa, they looked like a row of candles.
Then Dusabe came in. She is tall and slim, and she wore a bright yellow mushanana with a pattern of tiny gold dots. Her sash was the same yellow, and a shiny gold top showed under it. She wore small pearl earrings and a white headband like her friends'. Everybody stood up and clapped.
The men were just as smart. My uncle Gasana, the bride's father, wore a new dark-blue suit with a white shirt and a red silk tie. My grandfather wore his favourite old grey jacket and a round black hat, and he carried a long wooden walking stick. My little brother Shema wore a short-sleeved kitenge shirt with orange and blue circles, which our mother had made for him on her sewing machine.
And me? I wore a long green kitenge skirt, a plain white blouse and flat brown leather sandals. My aunt lent me a pretty little beaded bracelet in the colours of our flag: blue, yellow and green.
At four o'clock the intore dancers arrived. Their long white headdresses swung from side to side as they jumped, and the bells on their ankles rang with every step. By then nobody was looking at clothes any more: we were all dancing.
| Word | Meaning | Example sentence |
|---|---|---|
| mushanana | Rwanda's traditional formal dress for women: a long wrapped skirt with a sash worn over one shoulder | The bridesmaids wore cream mushanana. |
| sash | a long band of cloth worn over one shoulder or round the waist | Her sash hung down to her knee. |
| kitenge | a brightly printed cotton cloth used for dresses, shirts and skirts (igitenge in Kinyarwanda) | Shema's shirt is made of kitenge. |
| accessory | a small thing you wear or carry to go with your clothes: jewellery, a belt, a hat, a bag | A bracelet is a simple accessory. |
| headband | a narrow band worn round the head | Each bridesmaid had a white headband. |
| blouse | a shirt for a woman or a girl | I wore a plain white blouse. |
| sleeve | the part of a shirt or dress that covers the arm | His shirt has short sleeves: it is short-sleeved. |
| plain | of one colour, with no pattern | A plain blouse goes well with a patterned skirt. |
| patterned | covered with a design that repeats | Kitenge is usually boldly patterned. |
| elegant | stylish and graceful | The bride looked elegant in yellow. |
| smart | neat, clean and well dressed | The men were just as smart as the women. |
| material | what clothes are made of, such as cotton, silk, wool or leather (also called fabric) | Silk is a soft, shiny material. |
| Mushanana | Kitenge | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | a complete traditional outfit: long skirt, top and sash | a printed cloth, sewn into many kinds of clothes |
| Where the word comes from | Kinyarwanda | Kiswahili; the cloth is worn across East and Central Africa |
| When people wear it | weddings, gusaba, graduations, national celebrations | every day, and at parties and celebrations |
| Typical look | one main colour, often pale or golden, sometimes with a border | bold, bright, repeated patterns |
| Who wears it | women and girls | everyone: dresses, skirts, shirts, bags, even ties |
Definition
Adjective: a word that describes a noun. It tells us what something is like: its quality, size, age, shape, colour, origin or material.
An adjective can go before the noun (a green skirt) or after a verb such as be, look, seem, feel (The skirt is green. The bride looked elegant.).
When two or more adjectives come before a noun, they follow a fixed order, and a noun can sometimes act like an adjective too (a kitenge shirt, a wedding dress).
| Phrase from the text | Adjectives and their kind |
|---|---|
| beautiful long cream mushanana | beautiful (opinion), long (size), cream (colour) |
| a new dark-blue suit | new (age), dark-blue (colour) |
| a red silk tie | red (colour), silk (material) |
| his favourite old grey jacket | favourite (opinion), old (age), grey (colour) |
| a round black hat | round (shape), black (colour) |
| flat brown leather sandals | flat (shape), brown (colour), leather (material) |
| a pretty little beaded bracelet | pretty (opinion), little (size), beaded (material) |
Worked example
Analyse the phrase: a long green kitenge skirt.
Warning
Tip
Remember the order with a sentence: Our Sister Always Sews Clothes Of Many Patterns: Opinion, Size, Age, Shape, Colour, Origin, Material, Purpose.
Adjective order, from BBC Learning English's Learners' Questions (2 minutes). Listen for the reason opinion adjectives come first, and write down one example phrase the presenter gives.
Choose a classmate but don't say who. Describe what he or she is wearing today, from head to feet, in four sentences. Use the present continuous (is wearing, is carrying) and at least three phrases with two adjectives in the right order. Your group guesses who it is.
This person is wearing a clean white short-sleeved shirt and a dark-blue school skirt. She has a small red plastic hair clip. She is wearing a pair of old black leather shoes, and she is carrying a big blue school bag. Who is it?
Look at the photo below. Write 60 to 80 words describing what the young woman is wearing, from her head to her feet. Use at least four phrases with two or more adjectives in the correct order.
The young woman is standing on a sandy beach. On her head she is wearing a large gold and brown patterned head wrap, and she has colourful hoop earrings. Around her neck there is a long white beaded necklace. She is wearing a short yellow lace top and a long red, black and gold striped kitenge skirt that almost touches the ground. On her wrist she has some bright plastic bracelets, and she is holding a small yellow woven basket.
Practice
Sources and credits
