Adornment Gallery

Ongoing restoration to Entrance of Petit Trianon, Versailles

Women from Bukina Faso - showing the distinctive elaborate hairstyling and head adornment, and the varieties of colourful clothing being worn. They are from the Toucouleurs or Tukulor (or Haalpulaaren) tribe, a group distinct from but related to the Fula, a sedentary, agricultural people, living primarily in West Africa. Date: circa 1902

© Mary Evans / Grenville Collins Postcard Collection

Lebanon - Married Druze Woman with Tantour hat

The traditional vertigious tantour hat of a married Druze (a monotheistic religious community) woman of Lebanon (sadly not an example of the popular trend to replicate the landscape of late 19th century Sheffield at parties in Damascus...!!). The tantour, similar to the hennin (worn in the late Middle Ages by European women of the nobility), was popular in the Levant during the nineteenth century, but seldom seen after 1850 - making this card somewhat of a rarity. The height of the tantour was proportional to the wealth of its owner. Date: circa 1910s

© Mary Evans / Grenville Collins Postcard Collection

African man with lip plate

An African man from the Zambezi region in Africa, with an extraordinary lip plate, haning from the top of his mouth below his chin. He also wears a series of metal rings around his ankles. The Zambezi (Zambesi) River runs almost the breadth of south central Africa, running through Zambia, DR Congo, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania

© Mary Evans / Grenville Collins Postcard Collection