EDITO
the costume is naked
The flags are at half-mast, lowered by those who raised them. The culture war will not waged. The deathbeds are empty and will remain so. There will be no victors and no victims. Only the heavy scent of violent spices of reciprocal fascination, with no other form than goose-pimpled flesh, caressing hands, eyes melting with desire, sex all in a flutter, mouths to debauch the destinies of the preachers of adversity. The body costume.
Supermarket ethnicity, the plastic couples of high fashion and mass industry, the luxury of paper goddesses unfurled by frantic advertising, the vulgar, pre-consumed nonsense of marketing that trails behind the very foundation of life, these things can always exist. They cannot deny the spirituality of indigo as black as the sky, the naive tenderness of pale colours, the ochre maternity of mudlands that melt concrete, the dawn of synthetic yellows crossed with the green of eternal leaves, the rusted blood of henna. Black and white are no longer the mourning of virginity. Colours celebrate the body, tender or harsh, turned into pure spirit by the make-up of respite. Gold, silver, steel, glass and rope, gifts to the skin of the soul, forge dignity and honour.
R ough, silky, stitched, sculpted, clinging materials are not the mirror of a person, they are a masked projection. Masks being the form and meaning of an intimate ego, whether conscious or unconscious. Costumes lay this ego bare, not to society, but to the universe: they are not the demonstration or the ostentation, which can nonetheless exist beneath, but the nature of its nature, the skin of its skin, smoothed out by creams. Masks stop being part of ritual costumes that designate territory and social rank, now destined for craft fairs, but the costumes of another rite of love and hate: a membership rite for new groups of people in relation to the cultures they create for themselves beyond time, space and blood or racial ties. The costume of the prelude to love is already its own nudity.
by Jean Loup Pivin
CONTENTS OF RN 27 :
FASHION DESIGNERS /
Chris Seydou, K’Palezo 97, Fédération Africaine des Créateurs, FAC, The boys, Éric Charles-Donatien, Alphadi, Ly Dumas, Katoucha, José Esam, Errol Arendz, Lola Faturoti, Geneth Kebede, Kane, Collé Sow Ardo, Maîtrise de Soie, Noir et Blanc, H. Ranaivo, Angy Bell, Imane Ayissi, Agnès Hekpazo, Noir Ebène, Vincent Mc Dom, DJ Création, Kala S., Hagamainty, MANJA 97, Oswald Botaeng, Willy G., Dolly, Mike Sylla, Abraham, Eperson, Xuly Bët, Katita, Cie de Madagascar, Joe Casely-Hayford, Joël Andrianomearisoa, Sy, Shalimar, Adzedu of Shapes, Makéda, Katy Torda Dagadu, Michael Kra, Sylvia Andriamaivo A-NI-RA, Victorine Kossou, Kwesi N’Ti, Nathalie Chabrel, Alizé, Gilles Touré, Nahode Okaï, Étienne Marcel, Kofi Ansah, Mawuli Okudzeto, Jimmy Delaga, Alpha Sidibé, Pépita D., Diaousse, Soumaïla Traoré, Dou Couture, Fred Eboka, Pathé’O, Dasha, Ricci Ossei, Nawal el Assad, Aïssa Dione
SPECIAL CORRESPONDANT PHOTOGRAPHERS / Nabil Zorkot, Hermann, Vincent Thibert, Mamadou Touré Béhan, Faly, Daddy, Ananias Dago, Yves Pitchen, Patrice Félix-Tchicaya, Mirto Linguet, Andy Okoroafor, CLAM, Eric Don Arthur, Dorris Haron Kasco, Erick Ahounou, Alioune Ba, Pascal Martin Saint Leon, N'Goné Fall
SUBJECTS /
The Costume is Naked - Materials, Styles, Industry and Finance - Rebirth of an African Style - Fashion, Fashion, where are you ? - Spoilt for Choice - The in Thing - Sape On the Soul - Look - Hairstyles - From Linguère to Naomi via Mireille - Attraction - Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Touching and… the imagination of taste - Jewellery - Properties - The Scissor’s Cut - Photo Romance : Soumaïla, The Tailor of de Bamako - A Winning Strategy - Materials and Woven Fabrics - Dieyings of Mali - Indigo from Guinea - Woven Fabrics of Ghana, Mali, Cameroon - Fabrics of Kassaï - Facts and Figures on African Textiles - Industrial fabrics - On the Name of the European Commission - Address
FEW pages FROM Magazine RN 27 :
.
