Love them or not, fringe and tassels are to modern handbags as high heels are to a glamourous night out. Not essential, but we can’t leave them alone. They add swish, flamboyance and – better than heels – a skip to your step. Big tassels say carefree. A small, neat zip-pull tassel is more suitable…
While foodie culture reaches new heights in the West, the staple diet of many in the Sahel is millet. It’s the polar opposite of junk food, taking hours to prepare and being super nutritious. Our video shows a Fulani girl in Ouagadougou preparing nyiiri, which is the daily food for many Fulani in the North,…
Legend has it that a woman was washing her husband’s clothes when she accidentally dropped them in mud. They were stained brown and the technique of mud cloth dyeing was born. It was later discovered that fermented mud reacts with tannin and produces black. White is formed by bleaching away the colour. The legend of…
Spinning is something that any Fulani woman over fifty here is familiar with. Before the markets became mile high with European cast-offs and cheap synthetics, clothes were spun and woven by hand using locally grown cotton. Times have changed and there are few ladies who still practise the skill. But in a wuro (a family’s…
Summer is upon us and most Europeans dream of hazy days spent enjoying the sunshine, and maybe – for the more adventurous, nights spent out under the stars too. Glamping, Mongolian yurts and wigwams make the idea of camping more appealing to the aesthetically minded. And as a seasonal garden installation to captivate the kids,…
Whether you are a seasoned advocate for or just getting interested in ethical fashion, you will know that ‘ethical fashion’ is a cover-all phrase for many different things. According to the Ethical Fashion Forum, ‘ethical fashion represents an approach to the design, sourcing and manufacture of clothing which maximises benefits to people and communities while…
The phrase ‘the grass is always greener’ came to mind while flicking through a sample book of plant and mineral dyed hand woven fabrics at a workshop in Burkina Faso recently. ‘It’s for the European market’ says Mme Lankoande, ‘It’s not popular here, but it’s what people want in Italy and France’. The irony is…
In the remote village of Barani in Burkina Faso, close to the Mali border, people are busy preparing for the annual FECHIBA festival which this year will be from 8 to 9 March. The security threat is sure to impact the number of foreigners travelling for the festival, but there will still be plenty of…
Early next year I’ll be returning to Burkina Faso where I’m excited about researching more into traditional crafts. We’ve been in the UK for a few months to have a baby and have left our Fulani friends in the Sahel with orders for leather bag straps and hand-woven cotton cushions and blankets. A phone call…
In Burkina Faso traditional stirrups come in various different forms – rounded or flattened, larger or smaller – and horsemen of old used to have a selection of different stirrups for use on different occasions, whether visiting a friend, attending a wedding or going on a long journey. Traditionally stirrups were made out of iron…