It’s not quite “CSI: Smithsonian,” but a fair amount of detective work went into the mounting of “TxtStyles/Fashioning Identity,” a new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art. Comprising 70 rarely seen objects from the museum’s collection, “TxtStyles” reveals the messages hidden in wearable art.

Some messages are quite easy to decode. “If you see someone driving a Rolls Royce, you don’t necessarily have to see the price tag to figure out, ‘That’s an expensive car!’” says Museum of African Art Curator Bryna Freyer, who co-curated the exhibition with Christine Mullen Kreamer, also a curator at the African Art
Museum. “It’s the same thing with some of these textiles: you can see at a glance that a lot of time and fine materials went into making them so elaborate. The person wearing these clothes is clearly rich and important.”

Yoruba proverb

Not all messages are immediately apparent, though, even for an expert such as Freyer. She points to an indigo cloth that had been described to her as having letters incorporated into its pattern. After studying it, Freyer had a revelation: they were not just letters, she realized, they were words in the Yoruba language of Nigeria, run together without spaces or accent marks. She knew just a few of the words, though, so her next stop was the museum’s library, specifically its 1930 edition Yoruba-English dictionary.

“I lucked out,” Freyer says with a smile. Not only did she find all of the words in the old dictionary but she deciphered pretty much the entire text dyed into the fabric. What appears to outsiders as a string of random letters is actually a Yoruba proverb, although somewhat truncated and rearranged on the cloth. Any Yoruba person would likely know this proverb, Freyer says, which in its full form translates as: “God will divert the wiles of your enemies and make them prey to their own guile.”

“TxtStyles” is the museum’s first general exhibition focusing on textiles since 1987. Freyer and Kreamer faced a challenge in selecting just 70 items from the African Art Museum’s vast holdings. They decided against showing only the oldest or rarest cloths in favor of those that best demonstrate the ability of textiles (and, in a few cases, other wearable materials) to convey a range of messages. A rare 19th-century cloth from the Gold Coast, now Ghana, therefore remains in storage, while one woven in honor of the 1947 wedding of Britain’s Princess Elizabeth and never before displayed is included in the exhibition. It demonstrates the weaver’s respect for the young princess, who became queen five years later.

Mahdi tunics

Several military tunics featured in “TxtStyles” convey a different kind of message. They were made for soldiers of Sudan’s Mahdi army, who launched a holy war to purify Islam in Egypt in the late 19th century. Using cloth captured from Egypt’s protector, the British, the Mahdi designed uniforms incorporating patches, to signify holy poverty and send a message to the enemy.

How did the curators research the story of these patched-up tunics? They got little help from African art books, Freyer says, but the tunics were amply described in British military histories and even the London Illustrated News of the day. Curating an exhibition, Freyer says, is partly studying the objects carefully and partly poring over a wide range of books and documents.

Identifying the Mahdi tunics was actually easy, Freyer observes. Other items took some sleuthing—and knowledge based on long experience. For example, a robe in the exhibition was described in the museum’s database as coming from Bida, in central Nigeria, and of Hausa origin. Freyer was suspicious. She knew that most objects from Bida were made by Nupe people. To resolve the issue, she turned the robe inside out and examined its seams. The Nupe tend to use strips of maroon with green/blue striped fabric to cover interior hems, while the Hausa use the same color as the robe itself. The colored strips settled the matter. Freyer recatalogued the robe as Nupe.

Teeth, horn, quills

Inventive combinations of materials impart a coded message or convey an individual’s style, Freyer and Kreamer point out in “TxtStyles/Fashioning Identity.” Teeth, horn, quills or skin of wild animals or the feathers, beaks or claws of birds of prey announce men’s roles as traditional hunters, healers and leaders.

One striking headdress in the exhibition boasts a lion’s mane and was likely worn at the coronation of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie in 1930. To wear a lion mane, one had to personally kill the lion, Freyer notes, so the headdress conveys a strong message about the proud wearer’s bravery and skill.

Glass beads, ivory, shell and brass tell of positions of leadership or communicate status and economic success, the curators note. Imported fabrics, buttons, sequins and metallic threads proclaim either affluence, one’s capacity for innovation or simply a desire to impress with the new or unusual.

In displaying each item in “TxtStyles” to its best advantage, Kreamer and Freyer realized that wall hanging would not work for some of the more elaborate pieces. “African textiles are far from static,” Kreamer says.

“Rather, they are performed, kinetic and 3-D, worn on the body and thus moving through space in their contexts of use and display.”

In the exhibition Kreamer and Freyer present beaded cloths and other items on mannequins. Video monitors show various textiles in actual use in Africa.

The word “txtstyles” in the exhibition title is meant to emphasize that “text messaging began way before computers,” Kreamer says. “Much as mobile phone text messaging and computer-based-text documents convey information in short and long written formats, African textiles, clothing and accessories serve as visual devices to communicate complex ideas about the body adorned.”

“TxtStyles/Fashioning Identity” is on view at the National Museum of African Art through Dec. 8.