Dida Raffia Dance Skirt

The blocks here have broken ranks, tilting and jostling like a crowd leaving a concert.

This dance skirt is Dida, from Ivory Coast, West Africa, and dates to the 20th century. It is dyed raffia. Dida textiles are usually woven as tubes and patterned with tie-resist dyeing, the bound sections keeping the paler color of the fiber. Rectangular blocks in tan, rust and deep red cover the surface, each one ribbed with dark lines where it was wrapped. Some stand upright and others lie sideways, so the pattern shifts from column to row and back again. A dark ground shows between them, and twisted fringe trails from one edge. It is 82 inches wide and 39 long.

Order was considered, and politely declined.