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Without fabric, we would have little to do at Ndara. Every product we create, from clothing to home goods, is crafted using either repurposed fabric or pagne ­­– a vibrant pan-African textile known by many different names across the continent, such as kanga, kitenge or leso. Pagne is made from cotton, often waxed, with bold patterns and bright colors. The fabric is sold in swaths measuring 5.5 m (6 yards) in length and 1.4 m (1.5 yards) in width. Our artisans go through an average of 180 pagnes every single month – that’s almost a kilometer of fabric a month, or 35 meters a day! Needless to say, we are constantly stocking up on pagne to keep up with production.      

Like most goods today, textiles in the Central African Republic have to be imported, primarily from neighboring Cameroon and Congo. During the colonial period, a cotton industry was established, but following the country’s independence in 1960, decades of civil unrest led to the collapse of all domestic industry and production. As a landlocked nation with unsafe roads, the Central African Republic faces additional challenges in accessing major trade routes.

How merchants import fabric from Cameroon        
At Ndara, we choose to source fabric from a handful of local suppliers. One of them is Maggie, who has worked with us for years. Buying from her rather than from a wholesaler ensures that our business directly benefits a local female entrepreneur who in turn employs a small team. But how does Maggie run her shop and manage inventory in the challenging context of Central Africa? Hint: It’s not easy.

First, she has to save up enough money to afford three to four annual sourcing trips to Cameroon. These trips are resource intensive and not without risk as roads are treacherous and thieves target cash-heavy traveling merchants. To get from Bangui to the border with Cameroon, Maggie spends a full day (if everything goes well) on a packed mini-bus driving on Central Africa’s unforgiving roads. Once at the border, it takes her another day to pass through immigration and organize her next transport to take her to the port city of Douala. There, she spends several days buying up stock at various markets. For her trip back to Bangui, she has to hire packers to wrap up her many fabrics into bundles, and porters who carry her stockpile to the next transport. At the border to re-enter the Central African Republic, she pays hefty customs fees before embarking on her final day-long mini-bus ride back home.

Once in Bangui, porters help her carry the bundles of pagne from the bus to her house, where she keeps the pagne locked up in a bedroom turned storage facility. Every week Maggie makes a selection of about 80 fabrics that every day makes the journey from her house to her market stall by pousse-pousse (a four wheel cart pushed by young men on foot), the cheapest way of transporting cargo from one location to another in the city. It takes the pousse-pousse about 1,5 hour of walking to get from Maggies house to her market stall, where Maggie unpacks and hangs up each pagne, hoping for customers to walk by. Every afternoon, each pagne that has not been sold is packed away and loaded on the same pousse-pousse and makes the same journey back to Maggies house. 

Because we source through Maggie rather than ordering large quantities from a wholesaler, no two pagnes are ever guaranteed to be the same. With many small links in the supply chain, and limited control over our fabric stock, our products are truly one-of-a-kind. 

The cultural significance of pagne in the Central African Republic

In Central African culture, pagne holds deep cultural meaning beyond its practical use: It is a powerful marker of identity, status, and symbolism. The fabric’s design is innovative, expressive, and sometimes tongue-in-cheek, showcasing anything from religious figures (Jesus,famous missionaries), symbols of wealth and prosperity (a water tap spouting money), everyday items – beautified (keyholes, cars), floral and naturalistic patterns, and written statements celebrating special events.

For instance, when Pope Frances visited the Central African Republic in 2015, special-edition pagnes were printed in his honor. International Women’s Day is also a very popular event perpetually immortalized on pagne. Every year the Ndara team buys that year's edition of International Women's Day pagne and sew themselves complete outfits (preferably including a siriki, the matching head wrap) that they wear not only on the 8th of March but several times a week throughout the year. 

Pagne also plays a central role in social rituals: At weddings, it is customary for the entire wedding party to have outfits tailored from the same print of pagne to show unity. Church choirs and community groups often choose to wear clothes in “uniform”, fostering togetherness.    

Conscious Choices, Lasting Impact   

At Ndara, we always strive to use second-hand fabric first - recycling and repurposing materials whenever possible. But the reality is, to keep creating, we also need to buy new fabric. While we continue working toward increasing our use of recycled materials, we make a deliberate choice about where our new fabric comes from and who it supports. Choosing Maggie over a wholesaler isn’t just about buying fabric - it’s about investing in people. It’s about ensuring that every meter of pagne contributes to a real livelihood, a real community, and a real future. Because impact isn’t just in what we make - it’s in how we choose to make it. Not because it’s easy. Not because it’s cheap. But because it’s right.