Some of the garments made from African textiles are as astonishing as the cloth itself. In some West African countries, a sheet of material is often simply wrapped around the body. Elsewhere the woven cloth is tailored into garments or other items, two examples of which are shown below:
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From wrap-around to tailored dress.
Another textile speciality from Africa are mud-dyed fabrics, also described as 'discharge-dyed' cotton textiles made by the Bamana of Mali (Picton & Mack, 1989, p.161). The ground fabric is handspun cotton yarn woven in narrow strips on a double-heddle loom. First the cloth is dyed yellow, then the design is applied with river mud to one side of the cloth following the desired pattern. This turns the yellow dark brown. The yellow dye in the unpainted areas is then discharged with a caustic preparation returning the fabric in those areas to its original colour. The garment below is a modern jacket made from such a textile.
Other methods of dying cloth subsequent to its manufacture include 'resist-dyeing' (by stitching, embroidering or starch application), 'tie-dyeing' (a. below), printing (e.g. the Adinkra cloth of Ghana b.), stencilling, and even painting.
a.
b.
There are two web sites dealing with the subject of African textiles which have excellent Link Pages. I recommend to visit them at:
ADIRE AFRICAN TEXTILES &
AFRICAN TEXTILES & SYMBOLS
Bibliography:
Paula Girshick Ben-Amos (1995) - "The Art of Benin"; published by British Museum Press, London.
John Picton & John Mack (1989) - "African Textiles"; published by British Museum Press, London.
Georges Meurant (1986) - "Shoowa Design, African Textiles from the Kingdom of Kuba"; publihsed by Thames & Hudson, London.
Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler (1987) - "Weaving in Africa"; published by Panterra Verlag, Munich.
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