Girl Boss

When the first wax prints arrived on the Gold Coast at the end of the 19th century, no one could have predicted that these colourful fabrics would become such symbolic elements of African cultures. The secret of this success story lies in a group of Togolese women known as Nana Benz.

Guest edited by Anne Grosfilley

Wax prints would have never reached the African continent if everything had gone according to plans. In the imperialism context of the 19th century, Holland was expanding its influence in Indonesia, especially in Java, where it was participating in the Padri War against the Wahhabis. They discovered the batik technique on the island and decided to industrialise its process to sell the prints back to the Javanese market. Unfortunately, this industrial batik (renamed “wax,” a reference to using wax in the resist printing process) did not meet expectations. Convinced by the product’s quality and novelty, the industrial company thought it could seduce another market elsewhere. A Scottish trader, Ebenezer Brown Fleming, felt the potential of West Africa, as he knew that Christian missionaries had just introduced the sewing machine there, creating a demand for fine fabric to be cut and sewn to distinguish from the heavy local hand-woven wrappers.

Gold Coast (Ghana) became the first market for wax print around 1895. From the late 1930s, this unusual type of print, initially dyed in indigo, with bold, striking patterns and random cracking effects making each yard of cloth unique, attracted young Togolese women to Accra weekly to buy beads and fabric to sell them back in Lomé. Coming from the small town of Aneho, they had received no formal education but could speak several local languages. This ability proved critical to their success, as they transformed wax print from a simple piece of cloth into a symbol of women’s voices. By the 1950s, they managed to get Vlisco Dutch and English ABC wax prints delivered straight to Togo with a negotiated tariff regime. On top of that, they got a commercial monopoly on the designs for life as long as they ordered hundreds of pieces to be paid in advance.



Becoming an official Vlisco or ABC wholesaler was a considerable risk and responsibility: the women had to make the right buying choice and have the intuition to predict what would be popular. They started associating a name with each design to increase the kudos and make them more desirable, referring with freedom to the represented patterns. Getting the right message was the crucial issue, clicking with what other women had in mind but could not say out loud. In a period where polygamy was practised, jealousy was a key preoccupation. Therefore, wax print designs became a prism to evoke with humour the women’s aspirations and contrariety.

Unexpected associations were thus common as the designs sometimes referred to non-African sources of inspiration. A design of Garuda wings (referring to the Vishnu bird) was renamed “the snail out of its shell,” warning not to mind someone else’s business. An Ottoman-inspired pattern has become “my husband is able,” leaving the choice to guess what he is able to do. A jumping horse suggests “I can run faster than my rival.” This business practice was far from anecdotal. It has gradually transformed European wax prints into elements of African cultures. This fabric has become an “invented tradition” and a way to express African pride.



The women played a cyclic game of offer-and-demand to make the designs desirable, taking off-the-market designs, reaching their peak of popularity, and making them available after five or ten years to make the buzz again. Therefore, some popular designs have connected women through generations. They developed a nuanced analysis of the tastes of customers coming to Togo from all over West and Central Africa to buy wax prints. They could anticipate the specificities regarding colours and designs of women from the Ivory Coast or Zaïre. They could even target the different cultural areas of one country, such as Nigeria, with specific offers for the Ibo from Onitsha, the Yoruba from Ibadan, and the Hausa from Kano. These women have tremendously contributed to developing the European wax print industry in the Netherlands and England, as they were the finest informants of the different markets’ expectations.

In fact, they became wealthy businesswomen, investing their fortune in luxury apartments in Paris. They were also the first owners of Mercedes Benz cars in Togo. This external signal of wealth has been associated forever with these women through the nickname “Nana Benz.” Nana refers to a respectable, powerful woman, and Benz comes from the brand of their car. At the time, the usual way of dressing was a combination of three elements: a blouse, a wrapper going down the ankles, and another wrapper folded and covering the hips. Six yards were needed for a complete outfit, which made women covered by the same design nearly from head to toe, with a stunning effect. It is easy to figure out how impressive the Nana Benz were when they were posing outside their expensive German car, dressed in wax print.



Besides their interest in quality cars, the women acted similarly to the British entrepreneurs with philanthropic involvement. As Christians, they supported charities and also funded church buildings. These businesswomen were also mothers, and education played a crucial part in their lives. Their daughters got the best training in prestigious business schools in Europe and America. This way, the following generation managed to perpetuate the family business despite significant changes in the market, such as the devaluation of the CFA Franc in 1994 and the massive imports of wax prints from Asia, which were legalised by the World Trade Organization in 2005. Today, 96 percent of the wax print market is estimated to be overwhelmed by prints from China, India, and Pakistan.

Nearly 130 years after the introduction of wax prints into the African continent, the original designs are still popular and connect several generations of women. The voice of Nana Benz still resonates through the perpetuated names of the designs. The third generation now runs the business, humbly preferring to be called “Nanettes.” 

Text by Anne Grosfilley

Photographs courtesy of Matthew Miziolek / Vlisco