Maasai Jewelry Goes Mainstream

Maasai Project Video from Pikolinos' website 

Last summer I had the opportunity to travel to Kenya and Tanzania on a "teen service and adventure" trip.  As we were traveling to our first campsite, in the middle of the bleak, brown desert you could spot a group of red, blue, and purple far off in the distance. I soon learned that these spots of red, blue, and purple were the native Maasai people.  The Maasai people are a traditional semi-nomadic, pastoral, polygamist, group native to East Africa.  They are the cowboys of East Africa, some may say.  These people live in small communities made up of a couple of tiny round mud huts.  There is usually one chief who splits his time between his many wives and 30+ children.  However worldwide, the Maasai are most known for their handcrafted, colorful beaded jewelry.  I was sure to bring home tons of souvenirs to prove just how talented these people are.

Young Maasai Warriors

So what does this have to do with fashion?

Once I got back from my trip, I began noticing Maasai inspired clothing.  The first magazine I bought while back in the States (Vogue, October 2012) featured an article chronicling Elisabeth von Thurn and Taxis' safari adventure to Kenya's Maasai Mara.  I was astonished.  This wasn't National Geographic this was Vogue!  I immediately remembered all of the jewelry that I had bought while in Africa.  We were so ahead of the times,  so fashion forward, so chic.  

So anyways ever since my first run in with Maasai culture in modern high fashion, I am beginning to see it EVERYWHERE!  From Olivia Palermo's work as an ambassador for the Maasai project, which, with Spanish shoe company Pikolinos and the NGO Adcam, empowers otherwise suppressed Maasai women by allowing them to earn a living off of their bead work... 

via Pikolinos

...To Marc Jacobs' Spring 2013 Ready to Wear collection, in which Jacobs used the bright red and blue fabrics of the native Maasai women for inspiration.

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These beautiful African women have been wearing their traditional cloths of red and blue for hundreds of years, looks as though the fashion world is just beginning to catch on to their beauty.