An African Spin on Corporate Casual : ="Mandela chose the Pathe O look; now everyone does.(Brief Article)

The storefront isn't much. The proprietor doesn't advertise. Passersby in gritty Treicheville, the tailors' quarter of Abidjan, hardly give it a glance. Often enough, though, a diplomat's shiny Mercedes stands at the curb, or an African beauty emerges, laden with shopping bags bearing the company logo: Pathe O. Inside the small shop, Africa's leading couturier plays to a packed gallery of clients, showing off his signature shirts, which he drapes lovingly over an arm. These roomy creations, made from West African printed cotton by designer Pathe Ouedraogo, are worn tail out in deference to the climate, and are hot everywhere in Cote d'Ivoire, indeed throughout West Africa. "All of a sudden, everyone wants to dress African style," says Ouedraogo. "In 10 years, African fashion will take over."

At stake, says the couturier, is a continent's self-image. African casual has not been an easy look to sell to Africans, but after more than three decades of hard work, its champion is on a roll. Ouedraogo became a favorite of Nelson Mandela, who adopted the Pathe O look as his own, in 1994. Other trendsetters took a cue from Africa's most revered politician, and ditched their suits. Since then, Pathe O has taken off (though the owner won't detail sales, saying only, "Thank you, God"). "Before, no African chairman of a company or head of state had a choice," says Ouedraogo, 50. "When people attained power, it was over--they learned to sit, they learned to talk, they wore expensive, uncomfortable, three-piece suits. Everything that was African was mediocre. It's a complex. But now that's finished. We African couturiers reached an acceptable level. People noticed. And now it's in the street."

This self-made man once worried about getting fed. At 17, after just five years of formal education, poverty drove him from a tiny village in his native Burkina Faso onto the road. He ended up in Cote d'Ivoire, one more illegal immigrant in West Africa's financial center. On the way to the capital, he and a brother worked on construction sites and as field hands. In Treicheville, he stumbled into his life's work when a tailor offered him an apprenticeship--work, a bowl of food a day and a place to sleep on the floor.

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