Dallas, 16 August 2011
The Dallas Museum of Art is currently hosting “African Headwear: Beyond Fashion”, on view until 1 January. The event illustrates how headgear can indicate a lot about a person: sex, age, marital status, financial situation, social status, job and military grade.
The exhibition showcases all types of African headwears. The majority of the featured pieces are loans from private collections. They are made with all sorts of material, such as skin from a pangolin (spiny anteater), wood and copper, various types of nutshells, lion mane, and human hair.
African hats evolve according to the materials that appear in time, such as exotic nutshells, glass beads, plastic buttons and industrial dyes. Their role, as fashion accessories, is to flaunt the country’s new materials. The exhibition’s highlights are a bridal hat, tiered basketry hats worn by Ekonda chiefs, as well as religious and military hats.