Broni Waawu for Sale

In Casablanca's teeming Mzdina Orharab quarter last week, veiled Moroccan matrons surreptitiously rummaged through piles of secondhand brassieres, modestly hid their purchases under their flowing djellabah cloaks. Mothers with babies tied to their backs bought young daughters pastel organdy dresses for 47-c-,

"Cub Scouts" sweatshirts for the boys for 56-c-. In Accra, attracted by the hawkers' tinkling bells, Ghanaian dandies eagerly sifted stacks of multicolored "Yankee shirts" selling for 28-c-, judiciously fingered other broni waawu--which literally means the "white man has died." The expression was coined after World War II for used clothes, then chiefly Army surplus, when the natives assumed secondhand garments had belonged to dead soldiers. It has even wider applications today.

From the well-dressed U.S., the world's biggest exporter of secondhand clothing, broni waawu is covering the underdeveloped nations of the world. The raw material for the estimated $30 million annual business often results from a closetcleaning housewife's call to a ragman or the Salvation Army. The castoffs may end in a Baghdad bazaar or a peddler's Land Rover making bush-to-bush sales in Tanganyika--with a Brooks Brothers suit for sale at $5, Arrow shirts at 50-c-, a Saks dress at 30-c-. Last year U.S. exporters shipped over 200 million lbs. of used clothing around the world for profit. And though many a nation bans secondhand imports to protect local industry (e.g., Mexico, Japan) or because it lacks dollars (e.g., India, Tunisia), U.S. used clothes are smuggled into an astonishing variety of markets.

Raincoats Are Enough. Biggest market is Africa, where only a fraction of the population can afford new clothes, and where self-conscious new nations like Ghana are anxious to wipe out traditional tribal nudity. Ghana last year doubled its purchase of used clothes, spent some $1,680,000 on broni waawu, mostly from the U.S., and the All-Africa Women's League, the most militant no-nakedness national organization, distributed several thousand garments free. Morocco last year imported $1,000,000 in secondhand garments. In East Africa, the political and missionary propaganda on the importance of wearing clothes has succeeded so well that any native wearing only a loincloth is now derided as mtu hivi hivi --a wild man. The men like dark jackets, preferably dinner jackets, and the bigger the satin lapels the better. The clothes campaign has had fair success with East African women: despite the dearth of rain, the ladies' most popular item is a used raincoat--with nothing underneath.

In Uganda, where women in the West Nile district traditionally wear only Eve's fig leaf fore and aft, there is now a brisk import trade in bras and pants, but dresses are still considered slightly immoral. Often U.S. clothes must be altered abroad because they are too big; in pigmy Africa men frequently wear women's coats. There is a fast Uganda trade in tuxedos for weddings and funerals, which are bought used for $1.50 to $3, worn once and then resold.

No Skirting the Koran. In Iraq the most popular item is the dark, double-breasted jacket, which the Arab likes to wear over his traditional wraparound, ankle-length dishdasha robe. Faced with a decline in the double-breasted suit's popularity in the U.S.. exporters are hard pressed to keep up with the Arab demand. The coats retail for $3 to $5 with a tuxedo selling for $12. Until the import of surplus U.S. uniforms was stopped recently by the Iraqi government, the military look was much in demand from Arab doormen and night watchmen in search of a touch of distinction for their duties.

Used-clothes dealers, who buy sight unseen from the U.S., run into trouble sometimes. Last July there was a near riot when a dress decorated with a print of verses from the Koran was discovered on sale at an open-air stall in Chittagong, Pakistan. Outraged Moslems assembled at Chittagong's main mosque, called the U.S. consul long distance in Dacca to protest, were soothed only when the consul promised to ask the U.S. Ambassador to Paki stan to protest to the State Department.

Not surprisingly, the majority of U.S. used-clothing exporters are located in New York City, most in a narrow, dowdy slock on Manhattan's lower East Side. Biggest single source of used clothes to he exporters is their nonprofit competitors--charitable organizations that collect more clothes than they can distribute to the needy here and abroad. Last year, for example, the Salvation Army's eleven-state eastern division collected 40,000 tons of used clothing, sold 18,363 tons to exporters as surplus.

Although many charities give away clothes, particularly in Africa, most used-clothes retailers have little objection. The handouts often are the poor natives' first contact with Western dress, and so they make new customers for the retailers in the end, and there is plenty of nakedness to go around.

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