H x W x D: 10 x 25 x 23 cm (3 15/16 x 9 13/16 x 9 1/16 in.)
Type:
Textile and Fiber Arts
Geography:
KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa
Date:
Late 19th-early 20th century
Label Text:
Traditional African clothing starts with the minimum required to fulfill norms of modesty--the attire of youth is the beaded cache-sexe, the small apron-like garment that covers a woman’s pubic region. Young girls add beads to a single strand of beads they received as infants to create beaded belts with a panel or long fringe skirt. Generally, the longer the panel or skirt, the older the girl is who wore it.
Description:
Cache-sexe composed of a double tubular waistband wrapped with strings of blue beads, a hanging red and white fringe and a pink, black and white beaded panel.
Provenance:
Colonial Administrator, Natal or Cape Colony, South Africa, early 1900s
Mrs. Percy Paris, Natal or Cape Colony, South Africa, early 20th century to 1943
William F. Brodnax III, Washington, D.C./West Indies, 1943 to 1999
Exhibition History:
TxtStyles: Fashioning Identity, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., June 11-December 7, 2008
Content Statement:
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