A pagne is (1) a loincloth, (2) a length of printed fabric, and (3) a wrap-around skirt or a skirt and top made from printed fabric. Fabric is bought in numbers of pagnes; for a skirt only; one pagne, for a dress, two etc. Many of them are based on traditional designs, usually highly graphic and colourful, but loads are now printed in Indonesia, Ghana or otherwise outside Burkina, which is a tragedy, as Burkina also exports all the cotton it grows, untreated, for processing elsewhere .... a huge potential for a value-added market gone for lack of investment ....
New pagnes are printed for special occasions - I have shown three for International Women's Day which is a big public event and bank holiday here. There are ones for politicians and parties during elections, for religious festivals and feast days, and just general 'Say no to HIV' type messages.
Pagnes are also given to brides; every woman worth her space has a collection somewhere of wedding pagnes. Thenain, who married recently in Cote D'Ivoire, has 5 from her wedding and her mother has not even started to hand over the equivalent of the family silver .... A sign of a low-grade sort of a chap is to say that 'He didn't even buy her a pagne'.
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