Dress and fashion practices in Africa and the diaspora are dynamic and diverse, whether on the street or on the fashion runway. Focusing on the dressed body as a performance site, African Dress explores how ideas and practices of dress contest or legitimize existing power structures through expressions of individual identity and the cultural and political order.

Drawing on innovative, interdisciplinary research by established and up and coming scholars, the book examines real life projects and social transformations that are deeply political, revolving around individual and public goals of dignity, respect, status, and morality.

With its remarkable scope, this book will attract students and scholars of fashion and dress, material culture and consumption, performance studies, and art history in relation to Africa and on a global scale.

Not only does this multidisciplinary edited volume cast its geographic sweep as broad as a continent, it jumps into the centre of a conceptual Venn diagram. -- Siobhan Magee, University of Edinburgh, UK * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *
This book will appeal to those interested in how people in Africa use dress and fashion to engage relentlessly and innovatively with themselves and the world. Some papers, such as the one on wax-print cloths in colonial and post-colonial Togo, could be used as interesting case studies for business school students. * Textile Research Centre *

Karen Tranberg Hansen is Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern University, USA.

D. Soyini Madison is Professor of Performance Studies with affiliate appointments in the Department of Anthropology and African American Studies at Northwestern University, USA.