We have been writing about some of these designers and what products they have to offer. If you have thought to yourself you would like to get your hands on some of them, look no further.
From today, 25th to Sunday 27th at the New Muthaiga Mall, the following designers will be selling their products at a sale of up to 75% at the Aryam Designs shop on the second floor.
Here is an introduction to the designers we have had the pleasure of meeting and telling you about. In case you missed it or want to know more what they offer. Read on!
“I don’t follow fashion and I really try not to make fashion. I don’t do fashion, I do style. I love style.” Fashion, she describes, comes and goes by virtue of its seasonal nature but style is something that stays and is very personal. Your own style is unique to you and it matches ones personality.
“Someone as crazy as me wears crazy things. You would never see me in a suit.” Her designs are created to be more personal. Loulou Quinet creates around 120 garments to be present in her store, “so I make 120 styles.”…
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LouLou Quinet designer for Aryam Designs (right) via www.thebox.co.ke
Chilli Mango is “an Afro urban street wear brand.” Njeri Gikera further explains that Chilli Mango is a mixture of cultures combining historical Kenyan iconic images and sayings merged with hip-hop into an Afro urban design. “I wanted to design images that pay homage to African heritage. The fact that our stuff is being eroded by western culture I wanted to remind people who they are, to remember and make you think.”
The craziness and loudness of Kenya is what inspires her to create her designs in an attempt to capture and communicate that beauty…
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The vision of Enzi Footwear is to “to change the perception of Africa and develop its manufacturing capacity through the production of high quality and well designed footwear.” They are doing just that. With stores carrying their footwear collections in London and Hong Kong, Enzi Footwear is slowly but surely showing the world that Africa is capable of producing high quality luxury leather sneakers.
“Its so cool when we have a shoe in Tokyo and people are shocked when they are told its made in East Africa. Something changes in them” says Sam Imende. Enzi Footwear is proving able to change people’s perception on fashion in Africa as a unique identity and a reflection of culture. The celebrities wearing their shoes range from …
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The Katungulu Mwendwa brand is about answering, “what makes you Kenyan?” In answering this question, she went back to older African cultures to imagine how it would look like today in terms of architecture and clothes particularly had there been no ‘interruption’. Using this source of inspiration she seeks to answer that question through her collections.
“What we have seen is a phase in fashion of promoting what is African. It’s in. They have chosen to limit the interpretation to what being African means to a single type of fabric/material.” By virtue of using western style cuts on African material, she explains that this is a contradiction in itself. She does not want to be limited to this school of thought and seeks to expand the interpretation of what being African and particularly Kenyan means outside those confines…
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Kooroo is an Amharic word, which means ‘be proud’. “We wanted a name that said be proud of your heritage, be proud of who you are” said Hebret. Lanez added that they were proud of their own heritage and the women who always wore khanga so they wanted a name to reflect that pride and where they came from. The woman who wears Kooroo is “a woman who knows her style and not led by trends. She is confident, well travelled, well informed globally and appreciative of cultures.”
Hebret and Lanez prefer to work with natural materials as much as possible such as cotton, silks, linens and wool….
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Kooroo at Swahili Fashion Week
Happy Shopping!!
