Dressing Etiquette

The traditional kind of clothing for Gambian women and men tends to be long and free-flowing clothes. For women, they tend to wear clothes down to their feet as well as up to their wrists. This is called a grandmuba which comes with an undergarment called a malan which is a couple of metres of cloth which is wrapped around the waist as an underskirt.

Such traditional apparel tends to come in a multitude of vivid colours, waxes and designs. The essential point is that such clothing should cover most parts of your body except for the hands and feet. Ladies should cover their heads with a headdress called a musorr or Tiko. African women in the homes, doing chores or cooking, often wear a combination of Western and African styles, with T-shirts or other blouses plus a wrapper.

When out in public, women are more often seen in traditional garb than in Western wear, though many businesswomen will wear Western-style dresses with an African flare. As with men, Headdressyoung women and girls are seen in American-style clothing more often than the older ladies do. For special occasions, such as weddings or naming ceremonies, both men and women usually abandon the plain cotton and opt for African clothing made from beautifully coloured and embroidered fabric, sometimes interwoven with strands of glimmering threads.

Keeping in line with the Muslim faith many men tend to wear the Kaftan which is worn in a very similar way to the grandmuba. It is a full-dress, ankle-length, long-sleeve clothing which is also known as the fataro, jalabe or shabado. A variation of this is the 3 piece suit called nyeti abdu which comes with trousers called a chaya or the waramba. Such dress for men is very often embroidered in the elaborate gold coloured thread on the chest area and sometimes the end of the sleeves and back area. This male attire is topped off with a skull cap which is also usually embroidered in elaborate designs along the rim.