Esther

Patience Torlowei became the first registered lingerie manufacturer in Nigeria in 2009 with “Patience Please,” a line designed to “compliment a woman's inner beauty and self-respect.” It opened three years after she launched her own dress line, Patience Torlowei. Both industries are currently located in Lagos, where she hires young unemployed men and women and provides them with professional training. The resulting designs are created with consideration to environmental, social and corporate governance issues. As a result, Torlowei was invited to participate in the “Earth Matters, Fashion Matters” fashion show that took place at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art on February 22, 2013. Eight African designers, based in the US, Europe, and Africa, were invited to create new fashions that addressed themes of environmental sustainability and employed sustainable materials. As a result, Torlowei created one dress, “Daisy,” which paid homage to flowers, butterflies, and other pleasures of nature. Another gown, entitled “Evelyn,” was composed of a patchwork of tiny fabric discards from her warehouse stitched together to evoke the sense of a mosaic. It was accompanied by a gold silk cape onto which had been sewn the words, “Earth Matters,” accompanied by a recycling symbol also made of the patchwork material. “Esther” was the centerpiece of her presentation.

“Esther” is a stunning formal gown of gold silk and painted canvas, named for the artist’s mother who passed away the month before she began work on the gown. The artist contends that her mother’s spirit passed on to this gown. As she says, “Esther is much more than a dress. She is a force” (interview, August 12, 2014). The gown itself consists of layers: a petticoat, and then the silk gown which includes an over-skirt to which the canvas paintings have been attached, and the underskirt of luminous gold silk. Torlowei worked with gold as this is a material harvested from the earth of Africa, and it is a color representative of the riches and potential of the continent. Over this are paintings of scenes from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Congo, and South Africa that depict the blood lost and hardships suffered as a result of civil war, conflict diamonds, oil extraction, and other mining practices. Torlowei describes how she dreamt of the composition and then worked with a Congolese painter asking that he paint and repaint each scene until it matched her vision and until she could patch the scenes together so that they flowed with the same grace as the silk of the skirt. The finished effect is truly stunning. Since its unveiling in February, Torlowei has traveled with the dress, displaying it to critical success on three continents.

In honor of the National Museum of African Art’s golden anniversary, the artist has offered this golden gown to the permanent collection. It is the first work of haute couture by a named designer to enter the collection.

Sleeveless woman’s floor-length ball gown of gold silk over a petticoat. The neckline includes a pointed collar and slit v-neckline. The overskirt includes a train in the back and a slit in the front revealing gold below. Both outer skirt and train have been painted with scenes of pollution and hardship relating to the oil industry in the Niger Delta, the trade in in conflict diamonds, and other extractive practices.

I Am: Contemporary African Women Artists, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., June 20, 2019 - April 3, 2022

As part of our commitment to accessibility and transparency, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art is placing its collection records online. Please note that some records are incomplete (missing image or content descriptions) and others reflect out-of-date language or systems of thought regarding how to engage with and discuss cultural heritage and the specifics of individual artworks. If you see content requiring immediate action, we will do our best to address it in a timely manner. Please email nmafacuratorial@si.edu if you have any questions.

High resolution digital images are not available for some objects. For publication quality photography and permissions, please contact the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives at https://africa.si.edu/research/eliot-elisofon-photographic-archives/