Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa [Paperback]

Hans Silvester (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 27, 2009

The scene of tribal conflicts and guerrilla incursions, Ethiopia’s Omo Valley is also home to fascinating rites and traditions that have survived for thousands of years.

The nomadic people who inhabit the valley share a gift for body painting and elaborate adornments borrowed from nature, and Hans Silvester has captured the results in a series of photographs made over the course of numerous trips. 160 color photographs

Editorial Reviews

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. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Hans Silvester is a member of the Rapho photographic agency. His most recent reports took him to Rajasthan, where he photographed the people of the Thar desert and the incredible bestiary of Shekhawati wall paintings. His books include Natural Fashion and A Window on Africa. Silvester lives in France.

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Thames & Hudson (April 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0500288054
• ISBN-13: 978-0500288054
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 9.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,306 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > Travel > Africa > Ethiopia & Djibouti
  • #8 in Books > Travel > Reference & Tips > Pictorial
  • #11 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Travel

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beauty does not need a context, June 13, 2008

By 

ChevalierMalFait (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa (Hardcover)

I do not (yet) own this book, but I spent half an hour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art gift shop recently in an absolute trance paging through it. The sole review here trashing this beautiful book struck me as so unfair that I feel compelled to write a rebuttal.

The reviewer is concerned that this collection of photographs does not represent the daily lives and cultural practices of the people it represents. That in fact the attention these people are getting from tourists and photographers is encouraging them to show off and thus changing their cultural practices from what they were in isolation. All that may be true. But none of it obscures or in any way detracts from the undeniable truth that these are some of the most beautiful, creative, and uniquely adorned people in the world. To page through this book is to be transported momentarily into a world of sensual beauty that few of us even dare to imagine exists. The viewer who is open minded enough to appreciate it is gifted with an insight into the beauty of a people he/she might not have known even existed. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so.

Does photographing these people and the attention that ensues change them? Probably. Is that a bad thing? I don't know. But I do know it is up to the people being photographed to decide that. It is up to them to decide whether or not, and in what manner, they want to be photographed, not some outsider who believes their culture should be left intact. In a globalizing world, I can think of many types of attention from the outside world that would not be quite so benign. If it was done without compulsion, which appears to be the case, then I think that broadcasting the beauty of a people for the world to see is a good thing. Change is inevitable. Hopefully this sort of attention will help ensure that the change is positive.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tribal Decoration, July 27, 2008

By 

Noemi (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa (Hardcover)

As a visual artist I can tell you that when I first picked this book up in my local library, the fantastic and surprising images nearly took my breath away!! I took it over to another artist's house and we looked through it together. Deciding right then to get our own copies. The wild painting on the beautiful black skin is very similar to the free and easy strokes in my own paintings. I am considering getting the other African related book my the same author.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable!, August 22, 2009

By 

R. Nichol "Paper Girl" (Orange, New Jersey USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa (Paperback)

Beautiful imagery. It will have you near tears... One of my most precious finds in recent months...the faces, the creativity, raw natural talent. Unbelievable. A wonderful book to draw inspiration from.