Contemporary African Fashion

African Expressive Cultures

by Suzanne Gott (Editor), Kristyne Loughran (Editor)

African fashion is as diverse and dynamic as the continent and the people who live there. While experts have long recognized the importance of clothing as a marker of ethnic identity, life stages, political affiliation, and social class, they have only just begun to discover African fashion. Contemporary African Fashion puts Africa at the intersection of world cultures and globalized identities, displaying the powerful creative force and impact of newly emerging styles. Richly illustrated with color photographs, this book showcases haute couture for the African continent. The visual impact of fashion created and worn today in Africa comes to life here, beautifully and brilliantly.

Genres: Africa

228 pages, Paperback

First published September 29, 2010

Reviews

[Suzanne Ondrus · Rating 4 out of 5]

-Read chapter on Damali Afrikan Wear- sold in U.S., 1st started in 1991, Founder Brenda Winstead visited Senegal and Gambia in lat 1980s,uses mudcloth from Mali;
Brenda Winstead says:
When you experience the creation of a particular fabric woven, dyed, embroidered, or otherwise brought to life, it ceases to be an object and becomes an essence. It i s the embodiment of the lives that formed it, the cultures that inspired it and the relationships that sustained it along the way. (216).
-Haliatou Traore Kande lives and works in Florence- from Togo
*Oumou Sy-Senegal- merges traditional & modern.-love her outfit with gourds- she is a "pioneer of Internet culture..founding of Metissacana, a cyber cafe, website, and marketing site for Senegalese fashion and arts"(126). Sy designed for the Sahel Opera (2006).

"Clothes can be a defense and at the same time , an unlocking of dialogue between the spirits of people. Clothes permit people to be a cultural center for others, to enter their life and attain the body and the heart of the other. Fashion poses the questions: "What is that? Do you know him? No." You enter into a vehicle of thought and this vehicle transports you tot eh depths. You listen to the voice of the other person. Through the clothes, you find the sound, and you advance into the heart of the other. It is the clothing that provoked that.
Fashion is a vehicle of thought, of ideology, of research, of love. This is the depth of what I can give for the cause that is not simply a piece of clothing because the most simple clothing is to take a handkerchief from the head and wrap it around the body. The most beautiful clothing is the naked body. ...The window and the door of the body is the face, this seduction to the interior. ... Each person is wrapped, like a gift, awaiting the day we unwrap it and find what's inside. Clothing is a wrapping of the body, the divine gift, the gift of nature.
African fashion is far from the body because the body should float in the shade of the garment. ...the weaving of cloth, the weaving of thoughts...The shuttle is the thought that connects people...Our loom is our speech. The thread is speech. The thread is the outpouring of our thoughts. We are attached by an invisible thread. With cotton, we have made the thread visible. (Kandioura Coulibaly 113-114) -Coulibaly wants to open a fashion museum in Bamako