Guinness ad: Sapeurs

**SlackerDrummer** · 6th April 14, 06:08 AM

This is old by a few months, but I just caught it today. Check the 1:10 mark.

More on the Sapeurs, below. Kilted fellow is throughout.

**unixken** · 6th April 14, 08:23 AM

The gents have class.

**GMan** · 6th April 14, 03:13 PM

Nothing but pure elegance!

Love it.

**Blupiper** · 6th April 14, 05:33 PM

My daughter did a mission trip to the Congo a couple of years ago. Women's and children's health initiatives. She had nothing but positives to say about the people and the land. The political situation and the guerilla insurgency--another matter. The videos were another interesting view into the people and how they live.

JMB

**Nathan** · 7th April 14, 04:43 PM

Brilliant! Thanks for sharing!

**Jon solo** · 8th April 14, 04:35 AM

very nice videos, and very nice attitude.
thanks for sharing

**Liam** · 8th April 14, 11:29 AM

I enjoyed both clips...Thanks for posting this.

**Steve Ashton** · 8th April 14, 04:37 PM

"La Societé des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes, known as La Sape (sapeurs) is a Congolese sartorial subculture.
It emerged as an expression of civil disobedience during the repressive regime of Mobutu Sese Seko. In the 1960s and 1970s, the fiercely Africanist self-styled "Father of the Nation" promoted as an official state ideology of Zaire to foster a sense of national identity at the expense of foreign and tribal culture:

From the BBC about the Guinness Ads

"Costume designer Mr Gammon took 28 suitcases of elegant kit to the shoot with members of the Congolese Society of Ambianceurs and Elegant Persons (SAPE) - sapeurs, as they are known. The main idea was to be true to the sapeur look, but also, "kind of, heighten it a bit," Gammon says.
The opening frame of the ad locates the action in Congo Brazzaville. Sapeurs exist both there and in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo - but the ad was actually shot in South Africa.
In the ad they wore a mixture of their own wardrobe, and Mr Gammon's.
Sapeurs never wear more than three colours at once (or four, including white). In the Guinness ad, featuring men from Brazzaville, Gammon kept black and grey clothes to a minimum
Hector Mediavilla, who directed a mini-documentary for Guinness, also released this week, says the ad is cinema - it's not intended to be 100% accurate. "But the spirit of the people? Yeah it's in the ad.""

Some actual Sapeurs