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On July 6, 2017 at 79 bis Avenue Marceau, a horde of fashionistas took by storm the hall of the salons Marceau located in the heart of the city of love, a stone's throw from the arc de triomphe and the not less famous Champs Elysée, to attend the presentation of the spring summer 2018 collection, of Imane Ayissi. The Cameroonian dressmaker, once again has subjugated the public, combining cultural Africa with the plush Parisian. However, this year the collection that Imane decided to call "Heroes" recalls a poignant historical fact, endured by the populations of the South of the continent at the beginning of the 20th century.
Imane says that, the inspiration of his collection comes from the Herero people of Namibia and in particular from a book by Jim Naughten entitled "Conflict and Costume", which already highlighted the meeting of African and Western cultures, for in this book one can admire the Victorian dresses crafted with patchwork by Herero women who assembled hundreds of pieces of fabric, to create dresses comparable to real haute couture of today.
However, the Parisian couturier admits that the theatrical staging of a cultural melting pot
Flashmag September 2017 www.flashmag.net
AFROTREND
Imane Ayissi Heroes Spring Summer 2018 Collection
hides a dramatic story because the Herero were victims from 1905 of what is considered the first genocide of the 20th century, perpetrated by the German colonizers, who for the first time experienced the horror of concentration camps on African soil.
The Heroes collection does not hesitate to demonstrate the paradox of culture which does not hesitate to develop itself even in extreme situations. Heroes shows in a shimmering aspect the colonial influence on the clothing identity so peculiar to Herero, as well as to the rest of the peoples of Africa.