Beautiful Books

Our selection of 5 books to offer or expose on your coffee table!

Gentlemen of Bakongo by Daniele Tamagni
“A journey with the Sapeurs of Bakongo, a district of Brazzaville in the Congo, and the true birthplace of Sape: ‘The religion of style’.” SAPE (Society for the Advancement of People of Elegance) is a highly exclusive all male club somewhere between the masons and a cult that emphasises style above all else. Born out of colonial ideals about Parisian elegance and style, today’s Sapeurs are highly respected consultants of style within their community. Organised according to rank, with strict codes of conduct and morality, each the Sapeurs of Bakongo manage to don high end name brand suits to devastating effect. The photos are surreal.  Each looks as though an Oswald Boateng fashion shoot got lost in the Congo. Tamagni has managed to capture the world of the Sapeurs and their aspirations whilst remaining awed and objective. Leaving the reader to consider whether SAPE’s conspicuous consumption is an homage to style or capitalism. Buy on Amazon

Trading Places: The Merchants of Nairobi by Steve Bloom
A book that looks at the bustling marketplaces in the district and slums on the outskirts of Nairobi; the pictures are absorbing and manage to capture the life of the store fronts and the people in them. Each store front is unique and captures the personality of the merchant. Complete with profiles on the stores and interviews with sellers, Trading Places takes the viewer through the markets and the communities that they provide for. Vibrant and seldom seen by tourists, Bloom’s photographs show the mood in areas of Nairobi that are changing and in some places may disappear as larger business drive small sellers out. Buy on Amazon

Black Britain; A Photographic History by Paul Gilroy and Stuart Hall
Written and compiled by two heavyweights of Black British academia. Gilroy and Hall illustrate what we have always known, that black people have been contributing to British culture for centuries. The older images, are particularly captivating especially that of a young black dandy in the early 1900’s complete with top hat and cane who wouldn’t look out of place in Brazzaville. The pictures of the Brixton Riots alongside the everyday pictures of life for black people in England during the 1950s and 60s are moving. More of a documentary of Black British progress over the years than an examination of the variety of the black British experience, this book is an essential item for every classroom and library across the nation. Buy on Amazon

Posing beauty: African American Images from the 1890’s to the Present by Deborah Willis
Reviewed last month by Reshma Madhi, Posing Beauty has a tall order to fill, illustrating how African-Americans from the 1890s onwards re-branded themselves in order to speak out against mainstream society’s negative and exclusionary portrayal of black people. It manages to do this by showing how the personal is political. The book contains shots of the African-American middle class and striking images of the Civil Rights movement stand alongside more quiet and intimate portraits of preachers and families on going to church in their Sunday best. Most importantly it manages to illustrate how ubiquitous black beauty has become in American popular culture and yet still how far it has to go. A beautiful collection of unique photos. Buy on Amazon

Reflex by Emerzy Corbin
‘Why can’t we as a community accept ourselves as we are’. Emerzy Corbin’s book Reflex looks at black female beauty and how black women view themselves. Reflex tries to strip away the two ways in which the black female body is stereotypically seen; as either animalistic and fetishised or absorbed into Eurocentric beauty ideals with the caveats of light skin, straight noses and ‘good’ hair. For Reflex Corbin asked 800 black women to participate in a questionnaire on beauty. Reflex has pictures of normal black women in artistic nude poses, with quotes from the participants and from famous and influential black women surrounding the pictures. Buy on Blurb