FOUFOULLOU
" Foufoullou "means both "mixed" and "together" in the Ewondo language of Cameroon. These words capture the essence of my work, the renewed joy of bringing cultures together - but also a dream for today. The last two years have tested us all. There, particularly in Cameroon, peoples are dividing, elsewhere tensions are exacerbating. All over the world, exchanges and demands are hardening. Haute-Couture is a stage for questioning the zeitgeist, but also for celebrating the harmony of dreams.
So this season, I've chosen to bring together two worlds: that of slogan clothing and that of celebration. Borrowed from West African textile cultures, with their meaningful printed loincloths, as well as from the culture of T-shirts with messages, here applied to Haute-Couture, the former proclaims loud and clear the need to come together. Faced with the great challenges of our time, those concerning
ecology or the current pandemic, we urgently need to unite to imagine new ways of living together, and to define new common goods. Being together is also the desire to get together, to dance together, after the successive confinements that have kept us apart from each other, with the closure of cultural and festive venues or the restrictions linked to the pandemic.
that isolates us. Because fashion knows no customs or borders, I've summoned the traditional festivals of Central and West Africa, the spirit of masks, their raffia fiber costumes and their promising profiles, to dance them out in Paris on the stage of a reinvented Palace. In this ceremonial to re-enchant our world, between ritual and parade, sequins flirt with kenté from Ghana, dyed bazins from Cameroon with electrically-colored silks, and acid-green Calais lace.
with adire tinctures from Nigeria.
This collection combines the generosity of boubou-inspired square cuts, the fullness and volume associated with presence and social status in Africa, with the energy of Western tailoring and structured cuts that redefine the body. And as always, the work of African artisans (dyers from Nigeria, weavers from Ghana and Cameroon, raffia from Madagascar), the excellence of French and Italian suppliers with silks (taffeta, satin, satin, crêpe envers satin, crepe fluide, organza) or lace, the authenticity of ecological materials (a flowing bamboo jersey) and the handwork (embroidery or applied raffia, strand by strand) carried out in Imane's atelier.
Imane Ayissi