Table settings Using Ethnic Textiles
Just down the street from the 295 5th Ave Textile building is what was formerly called the Chelsea Flea Market between 5th and 6th avenues on 25th street Manhattan, New York in the back parking lot of the Serbian Orthodox church. It’s small compared to the old Chelsea Flea Market or the Chelsea Garage Flea market but It’s still fun and the dealers there have a good eye. One of the reasons I like to go there is a community of African folk crafts sellers including a couple with an extraordinary selection of ethnic textiles from Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana. They are typically priced lower than Ebay and you have the benefit of checking for condition. I really enjoy using these textiles in table settings. As the images below show they can transform relatively common or even boring tableware into amazing experiences.
Photo by DeWitt Kendall of the assortment of ethnic and tribal textiles sold by vendors from Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana at the Chelesa Flea market betwen 5th and 6th avenues on 25th Street Manhattan, New York
Part of the array of tribal and ethnic textiles found at many flea markets around the US and UK. These are usually sold by vendors from vendors from Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana. This market is on 25th street between 5th and 6th avenues in New York.
A very unique woven indigo fabric purchased for around $40 from the market shown above transforms these somewhat uneventful cobalt blue square plates into a show-stopping table.
The woven and embroidered detail of this Ivory Coast fabric is amazing to touch and feel.
Mustard yellow ochre african mud cloth creates and entirely new table out of these cobalt blue square plates.
This extraordinary Shipibo-Conibo fabric is completely hand drawn using natural vegetable inks. The Shipibo-Conibo are an indigenous people (currently numbering only about 20,000) who live along the Ucayali river in the Amazon basin east of the Andes.
Careful choices of matte finishes on the dinnerware and flatware were important for this table setting built around an extraordinary Peruvian tribal textile.
Not something I would usually do is use a truely rare piece of textile as a table cloth. This setting was done as part of research into a new tableware line that would reproduce the patterns of this rare ethnic textile onto both fabrics and ceramics.
Version of the above table setting with accent salad plates in a contrasting but a somewhat complementary folk pattern.
The influence of tribal and ethnic textiles is evident in the assortment of table textiles at retail including Target in the US and Zara Home in Europe
Influence of ethinic indigo mudcloth and shibori tie dye in the fabric and ceramics assortment of Zara Home in Europe.
African, Indian, Japanese Shibori textiles and other folk textiles have become so popular that the designs have found their way into commercially produced and even ‘big-box’ textile assortments including Target in the US and Zara Home in Europe and the UK.