Batik or Ankara fabric? One product, so many names...

How do you refer to a Vlisco-cloth? Do you call it a ‘batik’, an ‘ankara’, a ‘kanga’, a ‘chitenge’, a ‘kitenge’, an ‘African wax print’, a ‘wax Hollandais’, or simply a ‘Vlisco’? Since West African market women managed to turn our wax prints into icons symbolizing the ‘joie de vivre’ of an entire continent, our materials have become known under a very wide range of names. Yet, what is a ‘ankara’ in Nigeria, a ‘kanga’ in Tanzania, or a ‘shweshwe’ in South Africa is often quite different. They may have different ancestors (sometimes far exceeding the history of the original Vlisco fabrics), they may even be based on an entirely different production technique. What binds these products, is that fact that they are recognised as meaningful clothes which look like they have been wax-printed, like the colourful Vlisco-fabrics that have been embraced by so many African households.

Counterfeits

Whilst some of these terms refer to the original Vlisco product or traditional African fabrics that have been created for hundreds of years, some refer to counterfeits. They may look the same from a distance, but are manufactured in alternative ways. For instance, a real traditional Kente can only be worn by a very few, but printed copies have made Kente-lookalikes available to a much larger group of people.

Similarly, the Vlisco factory in the Netherlands is the only factory in the world that still uses its original wax-production method. As these fabrics have been dyed in a bath, they carry a similar color intensity on the front and back sides. In later phases of the dyeing process, the cracking of the wax leads to the typical crackle-patterns that can be recognised in many Vlisco wax prints. Counterfeits may mimic this craquelure-effect, but often use digital prints to facilitate quick and cheap production. Instead of using layers of wax and printing, rinsing, drying and dying the material in various stages, they print all their colours at once.

Glossary of African prints

To make things more complicated, Vlisco has developed a range of products, all based on its own industrial wax technique. This is why you will find various original wax prints in our shops, referred to by different names, like Super-Wax, WaxWax and block prints.

To help you find a way through the wood of related terms, we have attempted to set up a small glossary of African print fabrics. It is by no means complete, but may help you distinguish the various types of fabrics somehow associated with Africa. Some refer to Vlisco-fabrics, some refer to Vlisco-cloths plus a lot of others which may look similarly, some refer to African fabrics that may be completely different.