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Since the beginning of civilization, cultures have created their own home furnishings. Many were useful, while others were purely for decoration and recording their history. In Africa, tribal textiles are revered for their attractiveness as well as for their cultural significance. If you’re looking to add a bit of texture from another land, perhaps this is where you should focus your decorating plans.
There are a number of areas from which you can purchase tribal textiles. These African countries include Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.
However, much of the textiles that you might see in stores or in online shops comes from the country of Zambia where artisans and locals paint and create traditional textiles for export.
To be sure that you are purchasing an authentically crafted textile, you will want to check the country of origin before purchasing.
The overall process of creating tribal textiles can vary from artisan to artisan, but the general steps remain the same. The person crafting the piece will start with 100% pure cotton fabric, fraying it and preparing it for the eventual decorating.
There are other fabrics that may also be used, but the colored items are increasing in popularity as they tend to be more cost-effective.
After the fabric is completely prepared, the artisan will paint on the chosen design with a number of different color methods – paints, pigments, dyes – and create the image. Some of these images can be created with a starch patterns and then dried in the sun to secure their place on the textile.
When the design is complete, many of these tribal textiles will be ‘cooked’ in an industrial oven in order to secure the design to the fabric.
This will allow the fabrics and designs to be completely washable in any washer and dryer as well as colorfast during that washing process. Another step that can follow this cooking is another washing process as well as another turn in the sun to further create a tribal look.
The starch patterns are then removed and then the design is revealed. Once this step has been completed, the textiles are sewn and pressed to be ready for shipment to a variety of stores or exporters.
You have a wide selection of patterns to choose from when you are talking about tribal textiles. Though one might think that there would be a limitation in terms of what you can find, as more consumers become interested in these pieces, the selection has expanded.
For example, you can find designs relating to:
- Contemporary design
- Children scenes
- Christmas
- Traditional tribal designs
- Flowers and floral designs
- Organic creations
When you want to add tribal textiles to your home, you can also choose from a wide range of items.
But this list is not exhaustive. There are a number of ways that you can incorporate these textiles into your home, as either an accent or as a main feature of a room.
What’s striking about these textiles is the attention to detail. However, these details can create discord alongside other decorating settings. What you will want to do is recognize the colors and patterns in the textile prior to purchasing it in order to see if it will be able to sit alongside your current furnishings without becoming too ‘busy’ in your living or dining room.
Another thought is to add a simple tribal wall hanging in a sparse room of your home in order to accent a certain piece of furniture that sits in front of it. Or, you could add a few tribal designed pillows to a muted couch or chair setup. The main idea is that you want to accent your home with these types of pieces instead of completely covering your existing design strategy.
You might also want to create a tribal textile theme in your home by placing a singular design in each room in order to link each of the rooms to each other without becoming too ornate. Try to find similar designs in order to make this technique most effective.
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