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Kente production can be classified by three versions: authentic kente cloth made by traditional weavers, kente print produced by brands such as Vlisco and Akosombo Textile Ltd, and mass-produced kente pattern typically produced in China for West Africans. Authentic kente cloth is the most expensive, while kente print varies in price depending ...
Adanwomase is also well known for the traditional Kente cloth weaving. Although there are a variety of oral histories concerning the origins of Kente Cloth, historians and scholars agree that Kente Cloth production is an extension of centuries of strip-weaving in West Africa. Strip-weaving has existed in West Africa since the 11th century.
The Asante became respected for strip-weaving Kente cloths in cotton and silk in the weaving village of Bonwire. The term Kente means basket and refers to the checkerboard pattern of the cloths. The cotton for early Kente was locally grown, but the silk was imported since silk moths a cotton not indigenous to Ghana.
Stripweave is a textile technique in which large numbers of thin strips of cloth are sewn together to produce a finished fabric. Most stripweave is produced in West Africa from handwoven fabric, of which the example best known internationally is the kente cloth of Ghana .
Kente cloth, the traditional garment worn by Asante royalty, has been widely adopted throughout the Asante kingdom. The name Asante means "because of war". The word derives from the Twi words ɔsa meaning "war" and nti meaning "because of". This name comes from the Asante's origin as a kingdom created to fight the Denkyira kingdom. [14]
The cloth pattern takes its name from Tattersall's horse market, which was started in London in 1766. [2] During the 18th century at Tattersall's horse market blankets with this checked pattern were sold for use on horses. [1] Today tattersall is a common pattern, often woven in cotton, particularly in flannel, used for shirts or waistcoats.
Bonwire is the home of the famous Akan Kente cloth. [3] According to history, two friends from the town learnt how to weave by watching how a spider spun its web. The two brothers by name Kuragu and Ameyaw in around the middle of the 17th century were hunters by profession.
Within traditional societies, age, marital, and social standing may determine the size and design of cloth an individual would wear. Social changes and modern living have brought about significant changes in how Kente is used. Kente Symbolism Kente is Used not only for its beauty but also for its symbolic significance.