In the last few posts we explored the power of photography in fashion and yesterday's feature closed with a juxtaposition of bright colours in pictures and in a recent fashion collection. Let's continue the thread today, but look at the power of black and white photography in fashion via the art of the late Malian photographer Malick Sidibé (he died in April), who inspired Antonio Marras' S/S 17 collection.
Born in 1936 (or 1935 according to some sources), Sidibé was born in the village of Soloba, in French Sudan. He started school when he was 10, spending his early childhood years working the land and helping his father tending livestock. He displayed an attitude for art and drawing pretty soon and, in 1952, won a place at the École des Artisans Soudanais in Bamako.
While working at the studio of photographer Gérard Guillat, Sidibé spent his nights cycling between nightclubs and taking images of beach parties, balls and official events, documenting in this way the local youth culture. After setting up his own studio at the end of the '50s, he became known as "the Eye of Bamako" and as the only travelling documentary photographer of the country.
His black and white images had a unique vibrancy and chronicled the transformations of African culture and the culture of Mali in the years after independence. Among his most famous and iconic pictures from these times there is one entitled "Nuit de Noël (Happy Club)" (1963) portraying a young couple happily dancing barefoot at an outdoor party, their heads touching lightly, symbolically hinting at the revolutionary power of music that gave people freedom.
The aesthetic of presentation and self-presentation in Sidibè's images was unique: his subjects' clothes - from stylish suits to traditional robes and wrappers - showed a rebellious control.
The clothes in Sidibé's images at times played a key role in the pictures, while the photographer experimented with low camera angles and dramatic lighting that communicated - via the postures, gestures and compositional arrangements of his sitters - a sense of modernity and identity in a state of flux, a spontaneous dynamism and energy.
As the years passed his portraits started attracting the attention of the Western art market and Sidibé was exhibited throughout Europe and America. In 2007 he became the first photographer and the first African artist to be honoured with the Golden Lion lifetime achievement award at the Venice Biennale.
There were elements of Sidibé's images in Antonio Marras' S/S 17 collection, showcased in September during Milan Fashion Week. A designer and raconteur, Marras closed his show with the same joyful exuberance oozed by Sidibé's images: after reading magazines and sitting with vintage hairdryer hoods on their heads for most of the show, the young black women populating the retro beauty parlour that was recreated around the runway, stood up and started dancing.
Yet Sidibé wasn't evoked just by the finale: his studio was indeed draped in fabrics that served as colourful backdrops and featured his equipment together with boxes filled with hats, ties and accessories. Here young people could pose in Western-style clothes, while families could mark a key event, such as a christening or a wedding, in traditional attire.
Marras opted for a runway covered in graphic patterns to evoke the tiles in Sidibé's studio images, while the clothes were a multi-mix of styles (here and there reminiscent of '50s silhouettes) that also hinted at the clashes and combinations of textiles seen in the photographs.
Different fabrics were combined together: printed garments were assembled with lace elements; light tulle was reinforced with upcycled denim turned into strips and assembled into floral motifs; checkered fabrics were mixed with rose embroideries; crafty gingham inserts were applied on dresses creating an unexpected naive elegance; torn or digitally printed nets of the kind you would use to create a veil for a hat made an appearance towards the end of the show while batik prints were juxtaposed to sequins.
Quite often two different fabrics were knotted or stitched together in one dress calling to mind the attire of the women in Sidibé's images.
In many ways this was a puzzle of dissonances and juxtapositions: matte textures contrasted with shiny Lurex fabrics; thick tweeds with smooth silks; pleated skirts with fluid gowns; functional denim was used as a Haute Couture textile generating elegant hybrids; army parkas were given a romantic twist as they were covered with bits and pieces of embroidery (you can obviously recreate the look by using scraps from your haberdashery shop on an old army surplus jacket…).
The decorative code produced a chaotic effect that was maybe a bit too overwhelming but coherent with Marras' usual designs. Yet, as a whole, the collection was not displeasing, even though it should have been heavily edited.
Marras didn't fall into the trap of appropriating and exploiting the images or the culture he was borrowing from: he is mature enough to know that being a story teller means to borrow a mood that can help a designer creating a vision for a collection, but does not imply offending, plagiarizing and stealing.
The final message asserted jubilant positivity and freedom, while celebrating the beauty of diversity (his runway included Asian, black and white models while men and womenswear were presented together) and of cross-cultural integration (you could even read the patchworks of contrasting fabrics as symbolic representations of our diverse society...). And in a global world shrinking through narrow-mindedness, fear of immigration, and prejudices, a celebration of a cultural exchange and of a photographer who presented a different vision of Africa can only be welcomed.
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