Featuring multicolor embroidery and emblems from urban life, ‘Ghana boy’ tunics like this one currently on view at the Drawing Center were worn by Malian workers who’d migrated to Ghana’s coastal cities. The garments might depict tools of a trade (e.g. a barber’s scissors), fashionable clothing or vehicles (motorbikes to airplanes) and speak to the experience of the wearer. On view in the Drawing Center’s wide-ranging design exhibition ‘The Clamor of Ornament: Exchange, Power and Joy from the 15th century to the present,’ this tunic demonstrates self-fashioning between cultures. (On view in SoHo through Sept 18th).
