Out of the Archives 13: 1970 USIA film profile of forgotten African fashion entrepreneur Malcolm Arbita
The US Information Agency (USIA) was a Cold War propaganda and public diplomacy agency. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) contains a large collection of USIA’s film, photography, and textual records, with many of these holdings still to be explored. As I make research visits to NARA, I’ll be sharing occasional updates of my discoveries, especially those materials related to post-independence Africa, from the USIA archives.
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In the last installment Out of the Archive 12, I pointed out the particular interest USIA’s Africa-related media took in covering fashion with connections to Africa. There I described the 1970 film Adventure Africa No 43, The Tailor, about a Kenyan tailor’s training in the US and return home with the support of American labor unions. Here I focus on the second film Adventure Africa made in the same year, No 47 in the series called The Entrepreneur: Malcom Arbita about the eponymous Nigerian immigrant making his mark on New York’s fashion scene.
This 18-minute color film originally shot on 16mm follows Arbita through the range of his design and business activities in the city running his enterprise L’Africana. The Entrepreneur is explained in the NARA catalogue as “the story of Nigerian afro fashion designer, Malcolm Arbita, who dreams of enlarging his American market by creating more demand for his African arts and crafts.”
The film starts with Arbita signing off for a shipment from Africa arriving at the port. It then follows him to his design studio, a dance party in an apartment where Arbita and friends boogie to Stevie Wonder’s “For Once in My Life” (another priceless time-capsule of 70s socializing somehow deemed relevant for official propaganda!), a presentation by his models of sample designs in the buyers’ office of the now defunct Abraham & Straus department store, a breakfast at a fancy restaurant with his assistant, his L’Africana boutique at A&S, and an extended conversation with a representative at the Design Research store, a retailer featuring Scandinavian products and furnishings that pioneered the notion of a “lifestyle store.”
The city of New York plays a supporting role in the film. The Entrepreneur gets out and about to record each of these encounters on location, starting at the harbor, including several of Arbita’s walks down the sidewalks during the day and at night when he admires the shop windows, and a concluding shot of the Manhattan skyline as seen from the water. These scenes include not only the dialogue but substantial diegetic sound. An incongruous choice for the added (uncredited) score in several places appears to be Tolchard Evans’ “Ballet Romantique.”
Unlike many other Adventure Africa series that employ a professional narrator, Arbita himself provides the voice-over throughout. This gives him plenty of time to share his thoughts on his work, which he describes as just “today’s styles using African fabrics” and his target audience, “The American is very interested in things that are different. . . they like the idea of having something from a far-off place, or a place that has a kind of intrigue about it. And what section of the world has more of an intrigue than Africa. “To have the title of fashion designer is so insignificant,” Arbita claims. He has high ambitions to not merely make clothes but to raise to much higher standards the quality of design items coming out of Africa. “Africa can begin to capitalize on the market open to her product in the United States. And I can be the bridge between the two.”
Arbita shares a few biographical facts as well, noting that he studied at Christ’s Hospital in Sussex (England), Pembroke College, Cambridge, and then graduate work at Columbia University in English literature. Further details are provided by several newspaper articles I found. A United Press International piece says Arbita, aged 31 as of 1966, is a “Cambridge University graduate who did post-grad work at Columbia before opening a boutique in Lagos that catered to American tourists.” A Baltimore Sun article from 1967 adds that Arbita had been raised from the age of 8 in England and originally planned to return to Nigeria to teach after his time at Columbia before being diverted to the fashion business. It also foreshadows his plans to open a pilot L’Africana shop on the Upper East Side, inspired by the 1966 First World Festival of Negro Arts. Both articles cited Arbita’s design origin story as being inspired by his wife’s demands for suitable outfits for her while they were at Columbia.
Arbita’s trajectory was part of a larger fashion trend. One researcher noted that “During the mid-1960’s, African textiles became popular and were even featured in Vogue magazine,” citing a 1966 article with pieces from Arbita as an example. Other references of the time highlight Arbita’s participation in various fashion shows at, for example, the Somali Embassy and 10th anniversary gala for Operations Crossroads (a charity that is the subject of a number of USIA Africa-related films). The last mention I could find of Arbita dates to 1973.
Several things stand out about The Entrepreneur. First, most USIA Africa-related films devoted great attention to Africans’ interactions with white Americans or in interracial settings. However, in this film, Black Americans appear prominently in the party scene, as a saleswoman and customer at L’Africana boutique, as his assistant to whom he’s teaching the ropes, and as models of his sample designs. In fact, Arbita says he makes a point to show his garments to buyers on Black models, “Once I’ve shown it on the Black or African girl, then we proceed to show them that the White girl can look just as exciting or more so.”
Second, the storyline of The Entrepreneur isn’t like the typical Adventure Africa film, such as The Tailor, that profiles an African exchangee to America benefitting some sort of sponsorship who then plans to return to his (most often) home country. In Arbita’s case, it’s not clear he ever received assistance for his studies or in the running of his business, nor is it suggested that he has any plans to return to Nigeria. Is the take-away that the American dream doesn’t discriminate, that it is in reach of anyone with enough drive and determination?
Third, in the heavily male preserve of USIA film production, this film’s end credits actually include a woman — writer, producer, and director Barabara Hussie. According to Hussie’s obituary, she joined USIA in 1953 and succeeded in becoming “one of the first female writers, directors or producers at the Information Agency.” Her other USIA documentary directing credits include Adventure Africa No 30 The Journalist and one on the contribution of African Americans to art in the United States. Camerawork on The Entrepreneur was credited to cinematographer Morton Heilig, who shot the USIA production My Father: Gordon Parks featured in Out of the Archives 3.
