African Apparel

Featuring African textiles, clothing, headwear, and jewellery, this book celebrates African dress as a product of global interactions, generational conflict and continuity, and expressions of gender. The book highlights the strength and resilience of long-standing practices that characterise African dress; the wide variety of cultural, religious, and political motivations for adorning oneself; and the varying identities reflected in analysing African material culture of the last century and a half. Textile selections include hand-woven and dyed examples alongside factory-woven and machine-printed cloth. Items of adornment include amber and silver jewellery from North Africa, beadwork-embellished clothing from South Africa, and various headdresses from across the continent, to name a few examples. From formal European colonisation, to independence for African countries, to the liberalisation of African economies, this book will demonstrate how dress practices reveal personal and group identities, cultural traditions, religious associations, political affiliations, and aspirations.