Tribal Fashion

Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration From Africa by Hans Silvester.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In this stunning collection of photographs, Silvester (Ethiopia: Peoples of the Omo Valley) celebrates the unique art of the Surma and Mursi tribes of the Omo Valley, on the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan. These nomadic people have no architecture or crafts with which to express their innate artistic sense. Instead, they use their bodies as canvases, painting their skin with pigments made from powdered volcanic rock and adorning themselves with materials obtained from the world around them—such as flowers, leaves, grasses, shells and animal horns. The adolescents of the tribes are especially adept at this art, and Silvester's superb photographs show many youths who, imbued with an exquisite sense of color and form, have painted their beautiful bodies with colorful dots, stripes and circles, and encased themselves in elaborate arrangements of vegetation and found objects. This art is endlessly inventive, magical and, above all, fun. In his brief text, Sylvester worries that as civilization encroaches on this largely unexplored region, these people will lose their delightful tradition. 160 color photographs.

As an artist myself I take great inspiration from the images I have seen from this book already. I am interested in traveling and in photography, and I have great passion and good eyes for doing so. Through these images I have recently discovered on the internet by Hans I am inspired for my own creative project of paintings and sculptures. Tribal Fashion are two words with meanings that I have been drawn towards, yet never did I expect to find the two together. There are so many inspirations here, so how to I begin without displaying an overwhelming array of words? I love nature and the use of what it has to offer: leaves, flowers, palm fronds, corn husks, spices, and more. I love tribes, because they show a true human connection to the earth. This is how I think humanity should soon exist again. They see the beauty in the nature on the planet and display that in their everyday lives. This is a deep spiritual existence that they have. The creativity in these African people's designs shows the fun of life.