Nomadic Men of the Sahara—the Tuareg

Of recent, nomadic tendencies have appeared within modern menswear trends, especially those of Northern Africa and the Middle East, such as with the 2010 spring/summer collection at CAMO.

In another article that I posted today on African menswear, I made mention of the nomadic peoples called the Tuareg, who were originally from the Sahara, most likely Libya, but migrated southward 2,000 years ago.

The Tuareg belong to the Berber peoples of North Africa, who call themselves Imazighen—‘free people’.

Many of us are familiar with the footballer Zenidine Zidane, who is an Algerian Berber.

Interestingly, prior to the 9th century most of Northwest Africa was Berber speaking but were slowly arabized.

Still, the Berbers are the largest minority group in Northern Africa.

Today, the Tuareg inhabit the central regions of the Sahara throughout North and West Africa.

In the Tuareg culture, the men cover their face with a veil or turban rather than the women.

Normally this veil (Alasho) is indigo blue and, hence, the Tuareg nickname—“the Blue People.

Photo top left Copyright CAMO.
Photo bottom right by Garrondo, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license at Wikipedia.

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Category › Africa , African fashion , Berbers , history , Nomadic fashion , North Africa , trends styles , Tuareg fashion