When Sandak, ‘fleya’ made fashion sense

Fashion in the 80s was very interesting, old trousers like jeans and corduroy had survived the times. Then came Pepe jeans. I had one that I really treasured. The jeans were more fashionable from the usual magnum. I remember when we were young, our parents bought us new clothes during the December holidays. So on Christmas Day, one used to wake up early take a long shower and wait for the parents to remove the new clothes from plastic paper bag we used to refer to as juala.

Then after breakfast, which used to be the only time we came across Weetabix, cornflakes, sausages and hot dogs, we used to go out to show off to our friends the new clothes. I remember one Christmas I had been bought a new Pepe jeans and as I was playing ‘shake’, I fell and the threads gave in. I started crying as I knew the canning would be massive from my mother. But my good and always innovative friend Anto Kirori saved me as he knew how to use the sewing machine they owned. 

This is the time there was a change in fashion from the 70s to the 80’s, so our parents bought for us trousers that were wide at the bottom. We used to refer to them as fleya. With this type of trousers, friends used to laugh at you, as what were in fashion were baggy trousers. Due to this, one used to walk with a thread and needle and had to learn a sewing method referred to as running stitch. When coming from the house during the compulsory Sunday morning inspection, before going to Buru Catholic Church by my perfectionist mother, the trouser was fleya and by the time I was in mass where I was an alter boy (a story for another day), my trouser was baggy. And of course, after mass I had to remove the temporary stitches.

At this time, as young lads we were also coming across magazines from the US with pictures of pop stars. The common magazines were Ebony and Write On. So we started copying their fashion styles. We went to Jericho market to get corduroy and velvet materials to make bowties, which was influenced by Michael Jackson who had one on the album cover of Off the Wall. I had big feet and was rarely a customer of Tiger shoes or Bata so a relative around OTC Bus Station used to make me shoes. That was before I was introduced to one of the best cobbler in Kenya. His name was Oduori. This man could copy from the magazine any shoe that you wanted.

Nearly everyone was lining up at his shop with pictures of shoes from magazines. Oduori made perfect moccasins that had bells hanging on them.

Although he charged me more as my shoe size was 12 (it is now 13.5), I never complained as another of his clients, Joseph Okelo of Makini School, needed size 15 (how now puts on size 17.5). Another shoe that became fashionable – and I don’t think Bata has ever made more sales since that time – were the plastic shoes of the Sandak brand and Ngoma sneakers. Sandak came during the holiday season and the shoes were usually out of stock by Christmas Eve.

I remember being sent to buy a pair by Catherine Ogelo from Umoja Market as all shops in town were out of stock. The Ngomas were more famous as they used to make us breakdance easily. Also, the ladies were not left behind as they had some lovely dresses, which were mostly with prints of flower such that one could be confused as a “walking curtain”.