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Taking barkcloth to the catwalk

Thursday November 17 2016
hendo

Jose Hendo (inset). Models wearing the collection made for the 3rd annual ‘Bark to the Roots’ event. PHOTOS | MORGAN MBABAZI

Jose Hendo is a recognised expert and speaker on barkcloth and sustainable fashion. A member of Fellowship 500, Ethical Fashion Forum and Centre of Sustainable Fashion, she was a featured speaker at TEDxEuston.

Her label “Jose Hendo” was launched in February 2011 and it sells online or direct from the studio, and also offers a bespoke service. 

Hendo’s collections have featured at EcoLuxe London, London Fashion Week and Vauxhall Fashion Scouts during London Fashion Week, Berlin Fashion Week, New York Fashion Week, TEDxEuston, Vancouver Fashion Week and Kampala Fashion Week as well as the Uganda National Museum.

She was nominated to represent Uganda at World Fashion Week Paris 2014.

Hendo is a designer by royal appointment, and she is the to-go-to designer of Ugandan royalty and government officials having designed for four royal weddings: the Princess of Tooro Kingdom and three of her aunties. 

The label’s studio “Jose Original” also produces garments for other recognised designers including samples and complete collections shown at London Fashion Week, and production runs sold in boutiques and outlets such as Topshop and Selfridges in the UK.

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Being a traditional fabric, the Baganda are the most skilled in the production of quality barkcloth in Uganda. The Ngonge clan are considered the best in the ancient craft and are the royal craftsmen of the Buganda Kingdom. Their craft is famed for its traditional techniques, refinement and unique style of producing cloth for the royal courts.

A proposed Action Plan by the Ugandan government and Unesco aims to popularise bark cloth by training craftsmen, who can preserve the craft for posterity.

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The Uganda National Museum in Kampala on October 14 hosted the third annual “Bark to the Roots” event under the theme Past, Present and Future.

The event, a brainchild of Jose Hendo, a London-based Ugandan-born British eco-sustainable award-winning fashion designer, was also the beginning of a campaign to plant one million mutuba trees from which barkcloth is made.

“My favourite fabric is barkcloth which I mix with other eco textiles such as organic silk, cotton and hemp. In my quest for zero-waste, I use good quality factory offcuts, end of line, recycled textiles and upcycle (rework used garments),” she told The EastAfrican.

“The texture (of the barkcloth) and the structure allows me to produce structured avant-garde garments without using conventional stiffeners. What is exciting is that barkcloth is organic and is the best ambassador for sustainability because the mutuba tree (ficus natalensis) from which barkcloth is harvested, regenerates and can be harvested annually up to 60 times,” she observes.  

The “Bark to the Roots” event was also attended by the Bukomansimbi Organic Tree Farmers Association (BOTFA), fashion designers and local stakeholders.

BOTFA members demonstrated how barkcloth is made and there was an exhibition of fashion garments, accessories and items made from the same.

Hendo debuted her new collection “Motto Silhouette” later at the Kampala Fashion Week the same week in memory of her father Pius K. Bahemuka who died in July in Kampala.

“Motto” means the origin, cause, foundation and the basis, in Japanese, words that Hendo said inspired the designs in the collection.

The “Motto Silhouette” collection featured a full range of dresses, accessories, bags and backpacks.

The designer used barkcloth, organic silk and hemp combined with innovative materials such as upcycled seatbelts and quality factory floor off-cuts.

Hendo, says she works with bark loth by applying different techniques to make it usable with other fabrics and is known for her prolific and innovative cutting-edge barkcloth collection “Resonance.” Her label “Jose Hendo” promotes the use of eco textiles, for example organic and recycled materials. It further supports ethical trading and raises awareness about the environmental issues affected by the fashion industry.

“Resonance” won her the Radical Designers Award in 2011. The collection has no conventional fastenings, zips or buttons, and is beautifully crafted entirely from bark cloth coloured in organic dyes.

On reactions towards her barkcloth designs, Hendo said: “When I have showcased barkcloth in other parts of the world the response has been exciting, positive and enthusiastic. People have asked if Ugandans know what I do with barkcloth.

When I first showcased my work in Uganda in 2014 at the Kampala Fashion Week, people could not believe it was barkcloth looking so good. They were proud to know that I was Ugandan and was promoting barkcloth worldwide and that they found it attractive and wearable,” she said.  

The biggest disadvantage to barkcloth is that it cannot be washed. But Hendo does not take this as a hindrance, arguing: “Not all fabrics are washed in the conventional way but we still use them in making garments. The best way is to eco dryclean.”

She advises her clients to “to treat it as their best silk garment, not to over clean it but do it only when necessary.” 

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