Fashioning Madras

In the 1700s and 1800s various racist sumptuary laws were enacted in the Greater Caribbean restricting how people of colour could dress. Formally prohibited from wearing the kinds of 'costly finery' worn by white people, both free and enslaved African Caribbean consumers subverted these regulations by creating glamourous fashions of their own.

African Caribbean women circumvented racist restrictions on the decoration and styling of their hair by creating sumptuous and elegant Madras handkerchief headwraps in a variety of fashionable new styles. In defiance of laws intended to segregate and subjugate them by denying them access to luxury fashions, African Caribbean women turned the Madras handkerchief into a luxury fashion in its own right.

The woman in this portrait, known only as La Martiniquaise, is depicted in costly gown of gauzy muslin, large pearl earrings, and a checked Madras headwrap.