Sunday 17 April 2011

Wearing African Textiles-part 6: an Ewe woman’s cloth

Fante

Vintage postcard, “Fantee women”, mailed 1904. The Fante, who live along the coast of Ghana to the west of Accra, do not weave themselves, but wore a wide variety of textiles locally imported from the Ewe and Asante, as well as European and Indian made fabrics. Here the lady seated at front right wears a cloth woven by a male Ewe weaver in what today is the eastern Volta region of Ghana. This type of Ewe cloth with groups of three weft face blocks rather than two, seems to be more typical of the C19th. Click on the photos to enlarge.

Ewe587

Ewe woman’s size cloth, circa 1900.

Our current selection of vintage Ewe cloths is online here.

Wearing African Textiles–part 5: Yoruba Aso Oke

yoruba

Vintage postcard, circa 1950, authors collection. The two ladies at the centre of the photograph wear ikat patterned aso oke strip weave cloth. Click the photo to enlarge.

asooke233

Ikat patterned aso oke strip woven cloth, Yoruba, Nigeria, circa 1950.

Our current selection of vintage aso oke is online here.