Abstract
For the study on the African style reflected in fashion designs since 2000, the applications of African style shown in the four major collections from 2000 S/S to 2005 F/W and some African designers' collections have been analyzed and compared. In this study, 218 pieces of fashion design from the four major collections and 80 pieces from the African designers' collections have been analyzed in three categories - traditional clothes, traditional textile design and accessories. First, in the formal application of traditional clothes, the western clothes seasoned with the traditional images takes the majority of the cases in both the four major collections and the African designers' collections by 89.4% and 77.5%, respectively. However, the African designers have a tendency to actively receive modernism on the traditional clothes, while most of the western designers in the four major collections re-explain and distort the natural and primitive images of Africa into the ones longed for by the westerns. Second, in the textile design, the African designers adopt colorful and geometrical patterns of traditional textile designs of West Africa, while various animalistic patterns (36.2%) are used in the four major collections. The western designers mistakenly mix these patterns with those from the West or other traditional patterns from different cultures, obstructing proper understanding of the African culture. Third, accessories are the cultural elements most widely utilized by the African designers. In the African designers' collections, they are simplified to provide the functions well-matched with the modern clothes. In the four major collections, however, the primitive and colorful accessories found in African tribal culture are used in an exaggerated manner.