Coiffure de jeune femme de Say, circa 1930s

Fanti Asafo, Fanti Hairstyles….

Today’s post marks an update to our gallery of Fanti Asafo flags from Ghana with a focus on two of the remarkable women’s hair styles of the region.  [The first three images are from our collection, the fourth courtesy of the Smithsonian Eliot Elisofon archive. ]

Here are the complete flags:

For more details please visit our gallery online here.

Guinea Conakry Fashion 1900

All these images are by one of my favourite of the early African studio photographers, A.James, active in Conakry circa 1900-1910. As far as I am aware, and unlike many of his contemporaries, his life and work has as yet not been researched. They are superbly evocative images, combining poise, beauty, fashionable hairstyles, jewellery, locally woven and imported textiles ….

More on “The Fashionable Hair”–style on Africa’s west coast in the 1900s

In a post last month I looked at a series of early postcards by the African photographer Arkhurst showing images of women’s dress and hair styles on Africa’s west coast, the region stretching from Nigeria up to Sierra Leone, in the early 1900s. Since so many people enjoyed seeing them, today I have brought together another group of postcards from the same era, this time by other photographers, showing similar fashions. All photos author’s collection, click to enlarge.

“Gold Coast, Fanti Woman” – postcard circa 1900, photographer “W.S. Johnston & Sons, Art Photographers, Freetown, Sa Leone.”

The above two photos “Gold in evidence gold coast Type” and “Gold Coast Beauty” are a rare instance of two views from the same sitting. Photographer “Photoholm – Lagos” circa 1900.

“Fantee-women” published by L. Pagenstecher & Co, Sekondi. circa 1900.

“Accra” – photographer and publisher unknown. circa 1900.

“Sekondi – Fantee Woman” photographer and publisher unknown. circa 1900.

“Congo. Femme Acra” photographer and publisher unknown. circa 1900.

For a discussion of this kind of image in the wider context of the history of photography in Africa I can recommend the book Photography and Africa by Erin Haney (reaktion books, 2010.)

“The Fashionable Hair”– Africa’s coastal style in the 1900s

These images are from two series of postcards produced between 1900 and 1910 by the photographer F.W.H Arkhurst in Grand Bassam, Ivory Coast. Arkhurst, a member of the Nzima ethnic group born in the Gold Coast , was a timber exporter who lived in Assinie and later in Grand Bassam. His studio photographs capture perfectly the then fashionable style of  women’s dress along the African coast from the Niger Delta to the Ivory Coast as families grew prosperous from trading opportunities in the expanding colonial economies. Hair was swept high and adorned with gold jewellery or wrapped in cloth, tailored dress was of imported cotton prints, often with a shawl or wrap of locally woven fabrics.

Fulani Woman by Monique Cras, Africaniste painter

Watercolour, Femme Foulah – Dalaba, Guinee, 1939, by Monique Cras (Christie’s Amsterdam, 24/5/2000 lot 173. )

Monique Cras (1910-2007) is one of my favourite artists of the French and Belgian Africaniste school, notable for her sensitive studies of both men and women in French colonial Africa. I will post a larger group of images of her work soon. Click on images to enlarge.

Vintage postcard, circa 1920, publisher & photographer unknown, author’s collection. Fulani or Peul woman.

Mangbetu hairstyle, Congo, 1958

Vintage postcard. Just a beautiful photo, posted for no particular reason…..