Clothing as archive: Connecting Cameroonian spaces, epistemologies, and identities

Every garment carries traces of the people who wear it- their movements, choices, and interactions, offering clues about how spaces are lived and experienced. Across generations, women in my family have shaped clothing and fashion, navigating spaces from the Equatorial Forest of Cameroon to Douala’s urban centers, with stops in Paris or New Jersey. This inherited engagement with fashion sparked my curiosity to explore its potential as a tool for understanding space in landscape architectural practice. This research investigates the interactions between people, their environments, and the way clothing reflects and shapes those engagements. The research culminates in a fashion design project that embodies these insights. By weaving together Cameroonian aesthetic heritage- from indigenous crafts like Obom to colonial-influenced dresses like the Kaba Ngondo, or more contemporary clothing like the national soccer jersey- the project demonstrates how spatial experience and clothing intersect, offering a lens to uncover how cultural narratives intertwined in Cameroonian spaces.