As a performance artist using dance and movement in her practice, Gbewonyo was also frustrated that Black ballerinas had been compelled, until recently, to wear pointe shoes and tights that only came in pale peachy-pink. ‘The intended effect is to create this really beautiful line as you dance, as it’s supposed to match your skin tone. But for a Black ballet dancer, that doesn’t work — it was another example of the lack of consideration for them.’
She began researching the history of tights, which led her back to colonialism, the slave trade and the cotton plantations that supplied the material to make stockings. ‘I thought I could build a historical line using the garment from the 18th century to the present day, and reflect the problems Black women face.’
Chief among her concerns is waste colonialism. Two billion pairs of tights are thrown away each year, and much of that waste ends up dumped in landfills in countries in the Global South. In sub-Saharan Africa, a football-pitch-sized mass of non-decomposable waste is dumped every minute. ‘My work is so closely tied to my own journey,’ she says. ‘My family are Ghanaian, but I was born in Britain. I am closely connected to both places.’
That dichotomy is reflected in her work. ‘It seems crazy that a pair of tights of the right skin tone should be so affecting, but it is,’ she says. ‘When I was younger, I used to feel kind of lost — not British, not Ghanaian — so something that really reflects every aspect of me as a British African woman is important.’
