The Emperor's New Clothes

The Marine Ball is a black tie affair that is held every year to celebrate the birthday of the Marine Corps. Naturally Scott and I were excited at the prospect of being able to attend and help celebrate this year. But that then begs the question...what to wear? We bought Scott a tuxedo before we left the States, but I wanted to wear something new and preferably flattering!

So I asked Rokhaya if she knew of a good tailor we could go to and she took Sandra, Stephanie and me to the tailor who made her gorgeous outfit for Korité. He kindly escorted us to the Marché de Tissue to go and shop for fabric and other accoutrement. It was an interesting experience and a pleasant one as we found that the vendors here were not as aggressive as you find in some of the other markets in Dakar.

Ndiaye helped us pick out our fabrics and when we got back to his little shop he carefully took our measurements and assured us that our dresses would be ready in two weeks. Considering he was working from pictures out of a magazine and not from a dress pattern, that is pretty amazing stuff!

We have since gone back to have a look at the finished masterpieces and got to try our finery on. A few minor nips and tucks and small changes and we will have the most unique outfits we could have hoped for. More pictures will of course follow when we go to the Ball next week.