Of all the interior design styles that can go horribly wrong, the tribal or so-called out-of-Africa look is right there at the top of Kilimanjaro.
For a start, there's the issue of political correctness and the idea you may be appropriating somebody else's culture. Ditto when it comes to using endangered species to make an impact. You may think an elephant foot umbrella stand looks great beside the front door and a baby rhino's head provides visual interest on the living-room wall but others might not.
Few things look worse than a tribal overdose. The key here is restraint or less is more, as the modernists would have us believe.
'It's quite a difficult look to achieve and when it's done badly, can be awful,' says Meryl Hare of interior design firm Hare and Klein. 'You can overdo it and end up with an African theme park.'
Hare's advice is to use a few key, quality objects and artefacts, rather than a glut of cheap, mass-produced copies.
'The Africans are particularly good at making things from wire and bottle-tops. If it's creative and a beautiful thing, then I'm even more intrigued by it,' she says.