Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa

Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa

Hans Silvester • Thames & Hudson

ISBN-10: 0500288054 · ISBN-13: 978‑0500288054 · 2009

Live offer for this book: 11 live copies of this book from $15.76 (as of 2026-09-07).

Canonical book record

Completeness 53

Cover quality: low resolution

2manybooks editorial

The lower valley of the Omo, at the borders of Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan, remains one of the wildest places in Africa. Over the course of numerous voyages to this forgotten land, Hans Silvester became fascinated by the beauty of the Surma and Mursi tribes, who share a taste for body painting and extravagant decorations borrowed from nature. In this region of East Africa, the rivers that run through the dry savannahs are home to abundant flowers, papyrus and wild fruit trees, and this luxuriance becomes an invitation to creativity and spectacle. Within hand's reach, a multitude of plants inspire fanciful and ephemeral self-decoration, and the Omo tribes react spontaneously: a leaf, root, seed pod or flower is quickly transformed into an accessory. People create caps from tufts of grass or they ornament themselves with banana leaves or a stem laden with flowers. These decorations are embellished with butterfly wings, buffalo horns, boar's teeth, colourful feathers and the like, and are further enhanced by body painting with pigments made from powdered stone, plants, berries and river mud.

Book metadata

Marketplace observations

11 live copies of this book from $15.76 (as of 2026-09-07).

Contributors

Community tags

Inferred themes

Machine-inferred from catalog text. Not verified subjects.

Stored catalog notes

Community signals

Have: 3 · Like: 6 · Rating: 2.8 / 5 (4)