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Contemporary African Fashion Ed. Suzanne Gott and Kristyne Loughran, with a foreword by Joanne B. Eicher Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010. 248 pages, 71 color illustrations, bibliography. $27.95, paper
reviewed by Barbara Plankensteiner
This volume assembles a variety of articles by known scholars specializing in African textiles, dress culture, and fashion. Targeted to a larger audience of scholarly readers not essentially acquainted with the latest research in the field of African fashion, it aims to be an introduction to the diversity of fashion in Subsanaran Africa and the African diasporas. Pertinent to this objective, it doesn't offer much new insight to specialists in the field but rather synthesizes the multifaceted perspectives and themes in the recent research.
Divided in three thematic parts, the volume includes thirteen articles and an introduction by the two editors, who each also contribute a chapter. There is no reference bibliography but a list of suggested readings relating to each chapter. The book is beautifully designed and features high-quality photographs illustrating the various topics addressed. The chapters are kept to a comfortable length, which makes the volume also a suitable tool for teaching.
In the introduction Suzanne Gott and Kristyne Loughran delineate the framework that guided their approach. Alluding to earlier key publications that illuminate African dress practices and their complex sociocultural significance or present African fashion designers, they follow an expanded notion of African fashion that encompasses dress or clothing culture as well as high fashion. They assert that African fashion is not a phenomenon of the recent past, but that constant change has determined clothing trends throughout history, a fact clearly reflected in several chapters of the book. The collection of essays further gives credit to the complexity of production of African fashion ranging from small workshops of seamstresses to renowned fashion designers acting on the international scene. Both fashion worlds are interconnected from a conceptual as well as global-local perspective.
The first part of the book, entitled "Fashion within the African Continent," includes five articles. Suzanne Gott resumes her research...