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Vincent Boisot / Riva Press

Comme chaque annee a la meme date, des sapeurs (adeptes de le SAPE, Societe des Ambianceurs et Personnes Elegantes) se rassemblent au cimetiere de la Gombe a Kinshasa pour rendre hommage a Stervos Niarkos, une figure de la Sape congolaise decedee en 1995. Le 10/02/2015. /// Members of La SAPE (Societe des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Elegantes) parades in Gombe cemetery in Kinshasa on February 10, to commemorate the movement's founder, artist Stervos Niarcos who in 1995. 10/02/2015. /// PHOTO Vincent Boisot/Riva Press

Comme chaque annee a la meme date, des sapeurs (adeptes de le SAPE, Societe des Ambianceurs et Personnes Elegantes) se rassemblent au cimetiere de la Gombe a Kinshasa pour rendre hommage a Stervos Niarkos, une figure de la Sape congolaise decedee en 1995. Le 10/02/2015. /// Members of La SAPE (Societe des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Elegantes) parades in Gombe cemetery in Kinshasa on February 10, to commemorate the movement’s founder, artist Stervos Niarcos who in 1995. 10/02/2015. /// PHOTO Vincent Boisot/Riva Press

Sapeurs
France   www.vincentboisot.com

The sapeur’s wardrobe is resolutely eccentric in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The elegant art of dressing known as SAPE (the Society of Ambiance-makers and Elegant People), since arriving in Kinshasa in the 1960s, has taken on its own special flavour. Every year on the 10th of February, the madness reaches fever pitch. On this self-proclaimed “international day of the SAPE”, hundreds of sapeurs crowd into the small Kinshasa cemetery that houses the grave of their “mentor”, the singer Stervos Niarcos.