Costume Jewelry in Dakar

After five years of living in Dakar, it was time for Otman to return to Morocco. The company that he had been working for was closing down and had cut it's staff from 175 to 15. Therefore, he began searching for work and networking in Dakar to no avail. It was time to go and he left on October 18. I am very sad for obvious reasons.

Before returning to Morocco, Otman decided to buy his mother some costume jewelry for her business. Otman’s mother is a negafa, a wedding planner of sorts. A negafa provides the wedding throne, the decorations, the elaborate seat that the couple gets hoisted up in, all of the dresses (women change clothing many times during the course of their wedding), the accessories, the henna, and sometimes does the hair and make-up. She also provides contacts for the DJ, caterer, and photographer. It’s a big and exciting job. Otman’s mother has been doing it for several years and her business is expanding. Even Otman’s grandmother has become involved in the trade. She owns three of the dresses and whenever someone uses them she gets some money. We are making her business a website that I will post later. This is a website of a negafa in France. Click on "robes" to see what women wear: http://www.laplumedargent.fr/html/negafa-toulouse.php

The last time I was in Morocco, Otman’s mother persuaded me try on the dresses and loaded me up with jewelry. I felt like I was playing an adult version of dress-up. The jewelry was colorful and bountiful: a crown, a necklace, earrings, a bracelet, a belt clip, and two clips of jewels that got attached to the dress near the necklace. For some reason I chose a pink dress, a bad idea when you have pink tinted skin and blush frequently. The horrific pictures are below. Please ignore the stripped tee shirt, the make-up less face, and the undone hair, which would not be acceptable if this was for real.

The cost of costume jewelry in Morocco is very high and the quality is also pretty high. In Senegal, imported jewelry it is cheaper than in Morocco but the quality is not great. Senegal has a thriving jewelry industry of well-made locally produced baubles. Everyone in Senegal wears jewelry in copious amounts so there is a large market for jewelry makers. There is also a large market for the fake stuff, since appearance is of the utmost importance. There are local jewelry makers who make costume jewelry which they tend to be in plated gold and enormous. On general, costume jewelry in Dakar both imported and local is the gaudiest stuff I have ever seen and is evidently fake. Regardless of the quality, we embarked on a journey to find colorful costume jewelry for Otman’s mother in Marche Tillene.

Costume jewelry is not sold with “real” jewelry, they are sold in very different environments. The costume jewelry is sold in tiny boutiques where the glass cases aren’t locked. The real goods are in more stately stores where one must request to see the pieces and there is weighing involved in the pricing. For the fake goods, imagine walking into a little boutique that is blaring religious chants and behind the glass cases are rows of busts with carefully placed glittering jewelry. In the front of the shop tends to be the locally produced gold plated jewelry and in the back is the imported jewelry. On these busts are gold plated chains weighed down by weightless plastic jewels in a variety of colors and shapes. Most of the necklaces have rows of colored jewels with a larger centerpiece. The earrings were a smaller version of the necklace and shine from their position on the bust. Otman liked one piece that had huge blue jewels. The jewels were so fake that instead of trying to look like sapphires, they looked like blue traffic cones that doubled as reflective gear. Some stores did not even bother to take the jewelry out of the made in China plastic wrap displays. Otman ended up buying his sets from such a boutique while I scoffed at the quality in my snobby American way.

I had the pleasure of trying these pieces on. I could see where the plastic setting detached from its mold and the glue drips left around the setting. However, I tried to convince Otman to buy a faux gold serpent set. The head of the serpent was eating its tail to form the piece. Some serpents were decorated in colorful faux diamonds, except some of the diamonds had fallen off and one serpent was cross-eyed. I then became drawn to the Senegalese made costume jewelry. The pieces were huge gold earrings in the shape of private school emblems that would rip your ears open, necklaces with enormous fringe and balls, ring pill cases that could hold all daily vitamins and then some. They were of superior quality but Otman didn’t think his mom would want sets without stones.

In the end, we ended up with four imported sets made up of a necklace and earrings in pink, blue, and two diamond designs. Unfortunately, none of the stores had crowns and refused to sell the necklace, earrings, and bracelet as a package. The total came to about $60, which made me fall off my stool. Sixty bucks in Senegal is a ton of money. You could buy that kind of jewelry in the US for so much cheaper and better quality. I tried to talk Otman out of it, but when it comes to his mother, he will do anything.

Playing dress-up in Fez with the good quality jewels.

A close up of the colorful jewelry.