Video: Designer’s Boer Prisoner-Inspired Looks
Bermudian Meagan Wellman’s final fashion graduation collection for her degree at the University College of the Creative Arts in Epsom, England is cutting-edge current — but also deeply rooted in Bermuda’s history.
The former Warwick Academy student’s collection was inspired by the National Museum of Bermuda’s artifacts carved by 19th century convicts and Boer prisoners of war found on display in the “Prisoners of Paradise” exhibit.
More than 4,600 Boer prisoners of war — 850 of whom were under the age of 19 — were transported to Bermuda during the 1899–1902 conflict between Britain and Dutch settlers in South Africa.
Held in internment camps on islands in the Great Sound, 35 of the prisoners died in Bermuda and six died en route.
Models wearing fashions inspired by artifacts carved in Bermuda by convicts and Boer prisoners
“Their greatest legacy [to Bermuda] was the souvenirs they made, the bulk of which had been carved out of Bermuda cedar wood,” the Bermuda Historical Society’s Andrew Bermingham has said. “They were industrious and inventive.
“Their articles represented life in South Africa. They made, among other things, wagons, tiny ploughs, goblets and a small boot with a snake popping up, symbolising their guerrilla warfare.
“The boots with the snakes, as symbol of their biting the British army, have been found in St Helena, India, Ceylon and Bermuda, where the prisoners of war were [taken].”
When the Boer War ended on May 31, 1902 most of the prisoners returned home to South Africa. But a number of “bittereinders” ["bitter enders"] refused to take an oath of loyalty to the British monarch. The last “bittereinder” in Bermuda died in 1927.
Ms Wellman is a past recipient of Bermuda’s Peter Leitner Arts Scholarship.
Meagan Wellman’s final fashion graduation collection on June 3rd in London
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