Imagine you would move several times a year. You would have to pack up yours and your families entire wardrobe, your other belongings, your sewing machine. Imagine in addition, that when you move, you move by foot, there is no big truck coming to pick up your things but you and your family will be carrying it. Imagine on top of it all, that the weather is actually pretty hot, since you are living in a semi-desert! What would you do? Probably you would start having as little as possible, to avoid having to carry around all these things every time you move. And maybe it actually would be best to dress you and your family in next to nothing! And that is exactly what the semi-nomadic Himba do, who live in the North of Namibia, an African country that is located in between Angola and South Africa on the west coast of the continent. Yet, do not think that wearing nothing means there is no style or concept of beauty.
Many groups of Himba have retained their traditional lifestyles of cattle herding, moving with the rains to find fresh grazing grounds. And with that many of them, especially women and children have retained their traditional way of clothing: in their infancy, Himba children usually do not wear clothes and their heads are mostly shaven. Yet, already from birth, they are adorned with beaded necklaces which have all sorts of symbolic meanings. Once they get older they will wear leather loin cloths or mini-skirts, made from soft goat or cattle skin and plait their hair in a distinct fashion depending on whether they are girls or boys. Adults don’t wear much more, yet, they are richly decorated with necklaces and bracelets made from metal, leather and shells and even more intricate hair styles. Clothes, jewelry and fashion are not ends in themselves but all have a spiritual meaning or practical function. For example, the thick metal bands around their feet are said to serve as protection against snake bites.
In this world, without garments and fabrics, women have found a most unique way of covering their bodies, to both decorate it and to protect their skin from sun and weather: they cover their entire body, including their thick braids and often even their leather skirts in a thick mixture of butter fat, ocher and aromatic herbs that gives their skin a fascinating earthen-red hue. Words are not really apt to describe the special beauty of this people, but there are plenty of pictures available on flickr.
Sep 4, 2008, 04.48 PMby staticstasy
Nudity? This is how these people dress!
Sep 5, 2008, 01.34 AMby Carillia
An interesting post to put here, where we’re all about thinking in new and interesting ways. A reminder that fashion is more than style lines and shapes.
And Gilded Bee, really… There is nothing sexualized whatsoever in that pic, it’s in no way offensive.
Sep 5, 2008, 09.42 AMby easbrooke
This particular feature is about the history of fashion. It began in the past couple of weeks. So you need to expect to see a variety of things. And, yes, this is fashion. Fashion fit for the lifestyle of a nomadic tribe. Yes, this fashion wouldn’t fit in with other cultures or even other indigenous tribes. But just because you cover every inch of your body doesn’t make the way you dress the only correct way to clothe the human figure. Different cultures can also be an inspiration to pair different techniques and ideas together, like colors and such. Looking at Flickr sites about this tribe you can see the variety of different hair styles and jewelry for instance. Please try to keep an open mind. What is acceptable in your culture and life isn’t always going to be acceptable to someone else.
Sep 5, 2008, 11.57 AMby staticstasy
Of course you are not going to wander around dressed like that but that is one of the reasons it is interesting! It is a DIFFERENT culture. What, just because we do not dress like this in your culture and my culture we shouldn’t learn how other people dress? Wow… I really don’t know what to say… :O
Sep 6, 2008, 08.58 AMby merryk
Thanks for ALL your comments. – this really is a fantastic learning experience for me as I honestly didn’t expect this article to cause such a stir. It’s great as this variety of opinion and reactions shows that the world despite communication revolution and globalization continues to be a fantastically diverse place. Let’s try to keep it that way.
Sep 6, 2008, 06.28 PMby EmilyKate
What a beautiful picture, and not what I would have expected to see on a fashion pattern site! I’m really enjoying your posts merryk and am looking forward to future ones. It’s a really interesting window onto a wider perspective on human body adornment and what we do to make ourselves look good :o)
Sep 8, 2008, 05.35 AMby Ghainskom
I guess Gilded bee posted first, was offended by the article and the picture and deleted her/his post after the fact? Anyways, I’m happy to read that the way the Himba dress is considered as fashion and not as uncivilised and that the most reactions are as open-minded.
Sep 8, 2008, 06.59 AMby CarotteSauvage
Thank you Merrick for expanding the notion of fashion which is saddly too limited to glossy magazines which have been continously reitirating the same antics on what beauty is and how a face (white and wrinkle-free), a body, should look like.