BACHA POSH: TWISTING TEMPLATES

Bacha posh means ”dressed as boy” in dari. In Afghan culture, boys are considered to be worth more than girls. If there are only daughters in a family, the parents can choose one of them and make her into a bacha posh. A bacha posh is a make-believe son, a girl that for a period of time takes on the role as a boy in the family."




Bacha posh is not only about girls being dressed as boys – it is about women’s situation in Afghanistan. I grew up with my grandmother, and I have seen what it looks like. Dressed as a boy, the girl has more freedom. The clothes thus become a vehicle to expanded freedom. She can go out by herself, and she can go to school. But as she reaches the age to get married, she has to change back to a girl’s role. This can be very painful, as the gender roles have very different conditions and expectations."




Here in the western world, women sometimes use garments inspired by traditional menswear at work to be taken seriously. The author Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie talks about this in her speech ”We should all be feminists”. Clothes with feminine shapes and colour are not perceived as powerwear the same way as menswear. The masculine is considered to be neutral, unisex. That is interesting, and I’ve chosen to work with the suit as leading garment in my collection."





The suit is very masculine – it accentuates the shape of the chest and shoulders. One could say that the suit is a kind of armour that the man hides behind. It is elegant and not very personal. The lining, on the other hand, is often sewn in soft, colourful silk. I wanted to open up the suit and show what hides on the inside. To show the more feminine inside is an act of protest or resistance against what I perceive as power and oppression. I twist and turn the suit and what it symbolizes, and that way it becomes something else."




I call my collection ”Twisting Templates. I think of gender roles as templates. In Afghanistan those templates are more narrow than here – there is one for men and one for women, and they look very different. A bacha posh change template various times during her lifetime, and get sort of squeezed between them. The suit is also a garment with a clear template – it is usually sewn in fine wool fabric, it’s got lapels and jetted pockets. I wanted to twist and turn that template, as I was twisting and turning my own thought upon gender roles and power."