Baya in Vogue: From Oriental Textile to Transcultural Tissage.

This article examines the 1948 Vogue France profile of Algerian artist Baya Mahieddine, focusing on the interplay between her artwork, North African textile culture, and French colonial and modernist receptions. It highlights how French critics and fashion industries often conflated Baya's paintings with traditional Algerian textiles, sometimes appropriating her motifs for commercial fashion while simultaneously framing her art as "primitive" or "naïve" in contrast to Western modernists like Henri Matisse. Drawing on the theories of Moroccan cultural theorist Abdelkébir Khatibi and art historian Monica Juneja, the article argues that Baya's oeuvre constitutes a transcultural "tissage" (weaving) that intricately blends textile motifs ("signs") and figurative painting ("images"), thereby challenging colonial binaries between craft and art, authenticity and modernity. This perspective repositions Baya as an active agent in a dynamic cultural exchange rather than a passive source of exotic inspiration, offering a textile-based paradigm that enriches global art historical discourse.