fashion

The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library owns over 4,000 photographs by American photographer and journalist Thérèse Bonney, (1894-1978), who documented life in Paris from 1925-35.

Contrary to what one might expect a calico button to be, such as a calico cloth covered button, this book refers to a china button with printed calico designs. A calico textile pattern was printed in ink on paper that was then laid on top of a tray of fired china buttons. As the tray made a second trip through the kiln, heat transferred the inked pattern onto the surface of the button and the paper was burned away. The author, Mr. Wilfred Morgan, was the first person to publish a catalog of calico button patterns.

This catalog highlights a spectacular collection of Indian jewels owned by the ruling family of Qatar, the House of Thani. Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani acquired a vast collection of Indian jewelry including some the world’s rarest pieces. He now owns a large number of jeweled objects that originally belonged to India’s Mughal rulers. There is no comparable collection .The catalog itself is also quite stunning, with full-page illustrations of exquisitely detailed Mughal miniatures and intricate jeweled objects.

Africa is rising—fashion, design, wax prints redeux, eco-architecture, floating schools, hammocks in libraries, AK-47s into chairs,  popular culture, récupération, safari lodges, curated dining, LGBT haute couture, Afronauts, sapeurs—where art and design and popular culture collide. Today’s African designers share an unflinching reverence for the past and draw smartly on that heritage in the novelty of their creations. This is not your Africa of yore.

Authentic early images of West Africans are rare—and quite sought after. David Boilat offers us just such a portfolio in Esquisses Sénégalaises, published in 1853. The twenty-four color plates are remarkable for their attention to details of clothing, jewelry, hair styles, skin color, and facial features. His accompanying text describes, with remarkable equanimity for his time period, pertinent customs and behaviors ranging from the admirable to the deplorable—all judged from the local point of view.