The death of Dédé Rose Creppy marks the end of a generation of traders who, from Lomé, rain and shine on the Dutch wax market, made this print that is often found in the wardrobe. women in sub-Saharan Africa.
It is a page in the history of the trade of wax loincloths on the African continent which turns with the disappearance of the Togolese Dédé Rose Creppy, who for three decades was the president of the Professional Association of fabric resellers in Togo. “Maman Creppy”, as she was affectionately nicknamed, died on June 5, 2023, announced the National Council of Employers of Togo, at the age of 88.
She was the youngest of the pioneer generation of “Nana Benz”, the nickname given to the resellers of wax fabrics from the Vlisco brand in the 1970s because they were the first to buy Mercedes Benz. Dutch wax, produced for the African continent, has since been emulated around the world and the prints have been inspiring major fashion brands and designers in all fields for several years.
young pioneer
Dédé Rose Creppy is first and foremost a pearl seller. Originally from the coastal town of Anecho in southern Togo, his business thrives in the capital Lomé, notably in the city’s large market destroyed in a fire in 2013.
If the Dutch wax of the Vlisco brand will make its reputation and its fortune, it begins by selling a less noble quality of loincloth, the fancy, which it acquires in neighboring Ghana. But soon, she joined the great ladies who then had the monopoly of the trade in wax loincloths in the 1960s thanks to her mother-in-law, indicated Togo Morning in 2019.
“Dédé Rose Creppy, their youngest (…) became their president all the same. Born in 1936, discreet and efficient, simple and firm, she is today, by testimony and example, the outstanding figure of her period to which journalists flock”explained, a few weeks ago, the academic Dalé Hélène Labitey, granddaughter of Nana Benz, author of Nanas Benz’s journey (Editions Graines de Pensées), in an interview with the newspaper The Exchequer.
Lomé, “capital of elegance”
“For the first time, highlights Dalé Hélène Labitey, resellers were not content to buy to resell. They reinvented wax patterns and adapted the different colors of the same fabric to the diverse tastes of their customers who came from all over. Lomé had become, thanks to the Nana Benzes, the capital of women’s elegance.”
Having become essential in the national economy because of their financial strength, the Nana Benzes are also women politicians, as Dédé Rose Creppy confided in an interview in 2019. They become the ambassadors of the regime of Gnassingbé Eyadema, the father of the current Togolese president. Maman Creppy had passed on the reins of her business to one of her daughters, Yvette Sivomey.
Selling loincloths today no longer has the same flavor as in the 70s and 80s, the trade began to decline the following decade, in particular due to counterfeiting and the devaluation of the CFA franc. The annual turnover of Dédé Rose Creppy in 1998 reached “barely the 100 million [environ 152 450 euros]when it was around 2 billion CFA francs [un peu plus de 3 millions d’euros] not so long ago”, reported in 2012 Comi Toulabor din the magazine Contemporary Africa.