Many of Keïta’s sitters were part of Mali’s middle class: civil servants and soldiers, teachers and tradespeople. Some were local to Bamako, and others travelled long distances just to get their portrait taken by the man who had emerged as the region’s authority in portraiture. All came adorned and unrepentant in their right to adornment. Keïta and his studio fostered the embellishment of style and persona, the pleasure and play of fashioning a look and of desiring to be looked at.