Army tunic

It looks as though it were designed for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris in the 1910s, the colorful patches of felted wool giving this tunic a “modernist” look. Yet it’s part of a soldier’s uniform from Sudan, where Muslim leaders successfully fought against the colonial government at the end of the 19th century. The religious Mahdi army wore patches on their uniforms as a reference to the ragged clothes of mystic dervishes, a show of contempt for worldly goods.