In the real world, the body and dress are a gestalt. In the academic world, they have largely been addressed separately as an assessment of books and articles on body and dress reveals. My presentation looks at body and dress in Africa as a complementary pair as many designers do. (Rei Kawakubo of Commes des Garcons said, "Body becomes dress becomes body becomes dress")[1]. Different cultures treat the body and dress in different ways. In some cultures, the body is primary in visibility as in the case of nude men athletes in classical Greece. In others, the body is secondary when robes envelope and obscure it as in the case of desert peoples. In either case, the body provides the structure and surface for manipulation and change for any garments, cosmetics, and/or accessories placed upon it or held by it. When easily visible, the body’s physical perfection is admired and when not visible, the body is assumed to need coverage for either socio-physical or moral protection.
The word "body" is critical in the definition of dress that I use as "assemblage of body modifications and body supplements."[2] All the acts that we engage in when we dress each day include either modifying the body or supplementing it. We shower, comb or brush hair, clean teeth, apply scent such as aftershave or cologne or minimize body odor with deodorant. In addition, we select clothing and accoutrements . The acts and products involved in this definition of dressing the body include all five senses. Thus, I see the cultured body, the focus of this conference, as always a dressed body, for a cultured body may be unclothed but it will not be undressed.
I review some body and dress fashions and arts from across the African continent, both "traditional" and contemporary. I follow this by presenting in more detail, two peoples from my research who have contrasting approaches to body and dress: the Kalabari of Nigeria and the Somali of the Horn of Africa, (many of the latter are currently refugees in Minneapolis and St. Paul).
[1] As cited in H. Loreck, “De/constructing Fashion/Fashions of Deconstrction: Cindy Sherman’s Fashion Photographs,” Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body, & Culture, Vol 6, #3, September, 2002, p. 260.
[2] J.B. Eicher and M. E. Roach-Higgins, “Definition and Classification of Dress: Implications for Analysis of Gender Roles,” in R. Barnes and J. B. Eicher, eds, Dress and Gender: Making and Meaning, Berg Publishers, 1992.