I have heavily referenced a 1913 article of National Geographic named “The Non-Christian Peoples of the Philippine Islands”. These photos were taken by Dean Worcester. His anthropological tone had a strong sense of colonialist elitism, but the visual documentation of the tribal groups he came into contact with helped freeze a period in time where we can assess cultural garments.
Jacob Maentz
Photojournalists like Jacob Maentz make it possible to have visual aids in the modern sense. I didn’t realize how difficult it was to find photos of certain tribes until I started. Most of the few research papers that analyze indigenous fashion have no photographs, and stick to words as the main description. As a designer who plans to create a company to help address some of the challenges faced by native tribes, seeing how they live their lives in the modern sense provides an authenticity and honesty to research about the lifestyle of the tribes, and how they are adjusting to modernization.