African Corsets

Photographer Antoine Mouton is in town this week.
On Saturday we visited the Brooklyn Museum, that was surprisingly empty that day; we were the only ones around, a whole museum for us to enjoy!.
The Brooklyn Museum has a very interesting section of African Art. We spent almost our whole visit there.

Fashioning Africa was a book I read not long ago, and It amazed me the tight relation between art and fashion and politics in African cultures. Africans have an amazing sense of art and
fashion, they really know how to adorn their bodies, how to create symbols and make political statements with them, how to create gorgeous costumes out of anything.

One of the pieces featured at the Museum was this man's corset wore by the Sudanese tribe Dinka. Who said that corsets were a woman thing?

These corsets are gorgeous, made out of glass beads and sewn on tightly and worn until marriage. The height of the beaded wire at the back indicates weather the wearer comes from a family rich in cattle or not.

I've been trying to remember the name of that British designer famous for wearing really small corsets... but my memory failed...