04/03/2021
Celebrating Culture! 🥳
The dress is called a gomesi, a traditional dress that represents the Ganda culture. It is a floor-length, brightly colored cloth dress with a square neckline and short, puffed sleeves. The dress is tied with a sash placed below the waist over the hips. The gomesi has two buttons on the left side of the neckline. Most gomesis are made of silk, cotton, or linen fabric, with silk being the most expensive.
A kikooyi or kanga is tied underneath the linen gomesi to ensure that the fabric does not stick to the body. A well-made Gomesi can require up to six meters of cloth.
You're likely to see deep cultural women in Uganda adorned in this or very visibly at important celebrations.
The best scholarship traces the origins of the Gomesi to 1905. The dress was introduced by a Goan designer, Caetano Gomes (origin of its name), then resident in Uganda, which was a British Protectorate at the time. The dress did not gain wide use until the wife of Daudi Cwa II of Buganda, the Kabaka or king over Buganda, wore it at her 18-year-old husband's official coronation (he had been kabaka since age 1) in 1914.
Thanks to for this great photo.
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