fashion arts David Updike

W
e tend to talk about “globalization” as
though it were a relatively recent
development in our history. Particularly
in relation to the textile industry, it is also seen
(often justifiably) as an exploitative process aimed
at producing cheap wearable goods for mass
consumption in the West. The reality, of course, is
that it is older and more complex than we imagine
and can sometimes involve connections forged over
many decades among far-flung cultures, leading to
creative collaborations that reflect both global
networks and local and regional innovations.
A case in point is Vlisco, the Dutch company
whose vibrant textiles, based on Indonesian batik
wax-resist techniques for printing color on cotton
cloth, have for a century and a half enjoyed enormous
popularity throughout West Africa. In the hands of
local dressmakers, these Dutch Wax (or Wax
Hollandaise) prints are transformed into gorgeously
designed garments that reflect the tastes, traditions
and trends of the region’s various cultures.
A generous sampling of the products of this
intercontinental collaboration can be found in
“Vlisco: African Fashion on a Global Stage,” on view at
the Philadelphia Museum of Art through January 22,
2017. The show is a key component of “Creative
52 ORNAMENT 39.3.2016

Africa,” a suite of exhibitions at the museum surveying

African art across multiple mediums, including
painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, and
textiles, with an emphasis on the contemporary.

ENSEMBLE of cotton, in wax block print and Java print,

designed by Inge van Lierop for Vlisco, Netherlands, 2015.
INSTALLATION VIEW of “Vlisco: African Fashion on a Global Stage.” Photographs by Tim Tiebout, courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Curated by Dilys Blum, the museum’s Jack M. and array of outfits, some containing a single repeating
Annette Y. Friedland Senior Curator of Costume and pattern, others constructed from multiple patterns
Textiles, Vlisco showcases the thirty ensembles pieced together like a wearable collage. There are
created for the show by designers chosen in dresses, jackets and skirts, long and short, but some
collaboration with the manufacturer. “Vlisco helped of the most stunning pieces are the lithe, form-fitting
select a designer from each of the countries in which floor-length dresses that descend in layers and flare
they have shops,” says Blum. “They were given carte out at the bottom to complete the so-called mermaid
blanche to use a fabric—could be classic, could be a
brand-new design—and show how it’s used for special
occasions: weddings, funerals, women’s meetings.”
Among the design houses represented are Stylista of
Accra, Ghana; Sera Perfection of Kinshasa, Democratic
Republic of Congo; and Chrysken of Lomé, Togo.
Couturiers from Surinam, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, and
Nigeria are also included, as is the Philadelphia-based
Nigerian-American designer Ikiré Jones, whose men’s
jacket, trousers and scarf—the only menswear in the
show—are a nod to the African diaspora that has brought
international attention to West African styles. Works by
India’s Manish Arora and the Netherlands’ Inge van
Lierop (Vlisco’s senior fashion designer from 2008 to
2016) show how these styles have, in turn, influenced
designers from other parts of the world.
The moment you step into the exhibition, you are
greeted by an explosion of color. The walls, painted a deep
indigo, are adorned with some eighty examples of Vlisco’s
printed fabrics. On a raised platform in the center of the
53 ORNAMENT 39.3.2016

room, also painted indigo, ebony mannequins display an

TWO CHURCH OUTFITS, left of cotton and metallic thread embroidery,

wax block print; and right of cotton, wax block print, designed by
Madje Lawson Ame for Chrysken, Togo, and Akoko Folibey Seibo for
Credaniah Coupe Nouvelle, Togo, 2016.
 GALA DRESS (front/back) of cotton; wax block print, designed by Stylista, Ghana, 2016.
54 ORNAMENT 39.3.2016

COAT AND DRESS of cotton, wax block print, designed by Inge van Lierop, 2016/2014. DRESS of cotton, wax block print,
designed by Inge van Lierop, 2015. ENSEMBLE of cotton, wax block print, designed by Ejiro Amos Tafiri, Nigeria, 2016.
HAPPY FAMILY detail of chicks and roosters, one of Vlisco’s best-selling wax-block patterns.
silhouette. “I was surprised how much the mermaid silhouette
is the fashionable silhouette,” says Blum, “because almost all
of them have that look. It’s very body-conscious clothing.”
This focus on the female form is partly a function of the
way the market operates. Despite the recent international
attention, such clothes are by and large still designed and made
by local women for other local women. “The whole fashion
system is completely different from the Western European,”
says Blum. “You go to a dressmaker, a tailor, and have your
cloth made up into clothing. There are various strata of fashion
houses—the ones we have are women who have been in
business for twenty or thirty years and have maybe sixteen,
seventeen, twenty employees.” In Togo, the most successful of
these women entrepreneurs have earned the nickname Nana
Benz, a reference to the fact that they can afford to own
Mercedes Benzes.
The textiles themselves are designed and manufactured
by Vlisco’s international team based in Helmond, Netherlands,
where the company has been headquartered since its founding
in 1846. Sold in pieces six yards long and one yard wide, the
prints feature repeating patterns that run the gamut from
abstract to very concrete, including some that feature fashion
iconography (handbags, shoes, hats, belts, sewing machines)
or household items (vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, toothpaste
tubes, mirrors). “The repeats run horizontally, and they’re
very big repeats,” notes Blum. “You have to have a really
good understanding of the body in order to get an effective
cut, because you’re having to do a lot of piecing and mixing
of the patterns.”
Vlisco’s designs leave the factory with only a number to
identify them. Their names are acquired when they reach the
market, and may vary in different places. For example, one of
the oldest patterns in the current Vlisco line, a multicolored
pebbled design from 1922 identified simply as 14/0001 in the
Vlisco catalog, has variously been called Snakeskin, Panther
Skin, and Household Gravel. The latter name, popular in
Ghana, refers to the gravel typically found around the outside
of dwellings, but also to one’s immediate family and a saying
that they are “sometimes sharp and can cut you deeply.”
Another of Vlisco’s best-selling wax-block patterns, the
Happy Family, dates to 1952 and features a hen surrounded by
eggs and chicks and flanked to each side by a stern-looking
rooster. According to the catalog, this imagery symbolizes the
family structure and the pivotal role played by the mother. Such
patterns thus carry localized meanings not readily apparent to
outsiders, and the wearer may even choose a garment as a way
of silently communicating a particular message—a process that
Blum describes as “talking through cloth.”
“What I think is so interesting is the way something can be
designed and made someplace else but then becomes socially
integrated to the point where a West African woman thinks of
these as West African,” says Blum. “And then it gets translated
again because of the way it’s used as clothing. It’s all these
interconnections and multiple levels of meaning.”

GALA DRESS of cotton, wax block print, designed by

Lanre da Silva Ajayi, Nigeria, 2014.
 c ontributors
Christine Knoke Hietbrink
Christine Knoke Hietbrink is Director of Exhibitions and Chief Curator at Mingei International
Museum in San Diego, California’s Balboa Park, which she joined in June 2010. Her most recent
curatorial projects include “Sandy Swirnoff: Knotted Fiber Jewelry,” “American and European
Folk Art from the Permanent Collection” and “Black Dolls from the Collection of Deborah Neff.”
Knoke holds a BA in Art History from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an MA in
Art History and Museum Studies from University of Southern California. p. 20

Carl Little
Carl Little caught up with Kristina Logan in late August at the Haystack Mountain School of
Crafts on Deer Isle where she was teaching a workshop on glass beadmaking. Based in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Logan is “the leading maker of glass beads working today,”
according to David Whitehouse, executive director of the Corning Museum of Glass. Little
is one of twenty poets featured in a series of videos produced during Maine poet laureate
Wesley McNair’s tenure. They can be viewed on the University of Maine website. His most
recent book is Wendy Turner—Island Light. p. 34

Robert K. Liu
Robert K. Liu is Coeditor of Ornament and for many years its in-house photographer. His
recent book, The Photography of Personal Adornment, covers forty plus years of shooting jewelry,
clothing and events related to wearable art, both in and out of the Ornament studio. Recently
he has been teaching one-on-one photography lessons at our office, as well as teaching
workshops on bamboo jewelry. In this issue Liu writes about ancient Egyptian broadcollars,
usually made of faience beads, how they were made and extant examples of this beautiful item
of dress, including modern replicas by artist Carol Strick. p. 46

David Updike
David Updike is a writer and editor based in Philadelphia. A regular contributor to Ornament,
he most recently previewed the 2016 Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show. In these pages,
he reviews “Vlisco: African Fashion on a Global Stage,” an exhibition at the Philadelphia
Museum of Art that showcases the creative synergy of West African fashion designers crafting
beautiful formal wear from “Dutch Wax” printed textiles. Next up in Ornament is Updike’s
feature article on jeweler Barbara Heinrich from Pittsford, New York. p. 52

Robin Updike
Robin Updike has followed fashion in one way or another for most of her life. As a teenager she
sewed most of her own clothes and in those years Vogue Patterns carried designs from major
international designers, including Yves Saint Laurent. Updike still owns a prized Vogue Pattern
5 ORNAMENT 39.3.2016

for the famous YSL tuxedo for women and she was delighted to able to spend time at the Seattle
Art Museum’s gorgeous homage to the legendary designer. Based in Seattle, Washington, Updike,
a regular contributor to Ornament, writes about art, style and wine. p. 28
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permission.