Wire were good, sorry, I had forgotten "Pink Flag" - 1977, wasn't it? You can see the influence they had on post-punk & no wave.

I thought you would be interested to talk more about this flux as its seems its something you have put a lot of thought into.

If you want to see the documentary its on next tuesday.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/storyville/being-elegant.shtml

Also, F:lux, I think Papa Wemba is one of the most interesting people around, much, much more inspiring than a group of kids playing around with neo-baroque punk. Playing around with cultural dress as manner of both reestablishing cultural diversity & unconformity.

"Interviewed live on Zairian TV in 1981, Wemba was questioned about his latest outfit. He chatted with the interviewer, laughing off the interviewer's sarcasm. When questioned about his shoes, Wemba replied "Jimmy Weston™"; his trousers, "Tokio Kumagai™"; his jacket, "Armani™". Wemba shrugged off all criticism, remaining unflustered and stately to the last, much to the pleasure of the packed teenage studio audience."

thanks for a serious topic, flux, tho it'll be a bit before i can think of anything to contribute. pleasure to read.

Apologies for having dropped this topic on to the forum then bogged off seemingly, but I just didn't have time to chat. Also, I hope people are intelligent enough to realise that the subject is interesting in itself and it's value shouldn't be diminished by the fact that... I know very little about it. Posting it on the forum is one way of learning more about it through discussion then? Well, that's the idea anyway.

When I lived in Paris (European continent, just like UK, Germany and Italy which are all places I've lived and work in still BTW) the whole Sape thing passed me by. I heard of it but assumed La Sape was just slang for clothes, in the same way as togs, duds, threads etc in english, but in a more fashionably dressy sense. So it's really interesting for me to discover that there's so much more to it. Especially the 'elevating fashion to the status of a religion' aspect. I can't wait to see the Storyville prog (thanks for telling me about that Maikeru, I'd probably have missed it otherwise). Hope to have more to say about all this afterwards. See you later!

For those actually interested in the concept of Sapeurs/Euro influence on African dress etc. then More4 have a documentary about the "Swenkas" on tonight at 9pm. Similar to the Sapeurs, Swenkas are Zulu men who enjoy getting dressed up to aviod the "squalor & danger of their city." Showing off their "natty" clothes through elaborate rituals & dance. Anyhow, lots of that taken verbatim from the More4 site - check out the link regarding the documentary: http://www.channel4.com/more4/documentaries/doc-feature.jsp?id=62. Should be intriguing!

Bloody video packed up! I'll have to try and get hold of these docs from somewhere though, determined to see them. Damn!