In the last 20 years of collecting contemporary African art, I have been bombarded by incredible shapes and colors that I now want to translate into clothes.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
It was never my desire to revolutionize fashion, to make clothes that could be in a museum. I want to create clothes that have a certain style, but I want to see them used. I want to see people enjoy the things I've made.
I would like the people that buy my clothes to understand that for me it's one small piece of art.
Clothes are not frippery. Properly done, they can be an art form.
Clothes are unique sculptures, dependent on a supporting human form and created to move.
All over Africa, people are wearing what Americans once wore and no longer want. Visit the continent, and you'll find faded remnants of secondhand clothing in the strangest of places.
There's definitely something transformative about clothes.
You can make clothing as art, but I like the idea of my clothes actually being worn and being useful to women.
Fashion to me has become very disposable; I wanted to get back to craft, to clothes that could last.
The language of clothing is high symbolism and we all, in moments where we need to know this, realize it.
I am not really interested in clothing as a conceptual art form.