Imane Ayissi: Garments With A Loving Story To Tell

In the space between the close of New York Fashion Week and the beginning of London Fashion Week, when those who fashion themselves a part of the fashion industry come up for air, a historic fashion exhibit sits at Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, Georgia, quickly approaching its own closing. Up since September 18, 2024, and presented by SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion +Film, “Imane Ayissi: From Africa to the World” is set to close this Sunday, February 16. Curated by SCAD FASH creative director Rafael Gomes, this exhibit is the first museum exhibition honoring the work of Imane Ayissi.

Through coming to an end, there exists a sort of magic in the idea that this exhibition would close this weekend, during fashion season, but away from the spectacle of it all. In a low-lit room, partitioned by movable walls painted an earthen chocolate brown, are over 40 of Imane’s creations: impeccably structured garments. In this room, there exists an interpretation of beauty and fashion that draws fully from a life, the rich culture of the African continent, and the romance of a young man coming of age away from home and finding himself drawn back to the beauty of where and who he has come from.

Within Imane’s work, the “where” announces itself. On display, one will find interpretations of the sartorial heritage and the tradition of craftsmanship seen throughout Africa, fused with traditional French haute couture silhouettes and construction. Imane’s garments feature Obom barkcloth from Cameroon, handwoven Kente cloth from Ghana, Obom barkcloth from Cameroon, and Faso Dan Fani cloth from Burkina Faso. The eye gravitates toward Imane’s skillful blending of Lyon silk and natural fibers, including raffia from Madagascar, to create dresses that root themselves in African nature, culture, and tradition while expanding upon ideas of what haute couture can look like. As you walk through this exhibit, the exquisite Africaness of Imane’s work and the immaculate execution required are in plain sight. What is quieter and just underneath the surface is the who. Less obvious is the impression that Imane is considering more than form but also feeling.

At the end of a parade of skillfully made garments, one dress stands alone, adding to the story of a talented designer who makes beautiful clothes. If it were not relegated to its own space, it would still not quite fit amongst the other garments. It is a black velvet dress with a floral print applied throughout, sleeves that puff out ever so slightly, a cinched waist, and a voluminous A-line skirt. The dress’s silhouette dates it back to the 70s. There is a simple elegance to it.

“This exhibition traces the essence of my creative process and will introduce the public to the rich African heritage and culture that inspires my work. I hope that visitors will study and discover the beauty of contemporary and creative Africa,” Imane offers as a public remark on his work.

Often, when designers or creatives credit their work to a particular cultural context, intimacy is absent; the culture is referred to in generality rather than detail. But with that last velvety dress, we can see how Imane’s life provides details. From the beginning, his work, these dresses, elegant and intricate, were inspired by the world of a young man and the beauty he found within the walls of his own home and his own community, far away from the world of high fashion he finds himself in now.

Through a translator, Imane tells me, “I started to take garments and try to understand how they were made and why my mother was so beautiful. When my mother would dress up and wear these dresses, I would begin to doubt she was even my mother, like there was this beautiful woman in our house, but she was not my mother.” Imane’s mother, Mme Eyenga Ayissi, a former Miss Cameroon, worked for Air France. Imane remembers how her time in France influenced her fashion and thus informed his. “She was always wearing beautiful garments, beautiful dresses. Her friends were all beautiful and elegant women.”

When Imane speaks of his mother, his shoulders are slack, and he smiles at his words. He laughs at himself, remembering how he destroyed her dresses and a few pairs of her shoes, deconstructing them in an attempt to figure out how they were made.

During my time with Imane, he gets lost in his earliest memories of his mother, his town, and the people around him who first inspired him to sew and design clothing. He recalls borrowing his grandmother’s sewing machine until an aunt gave him one she no longer needed. “Step by step, I started to improve a bit. Then, my mother started to ask me to redo or change her old dresses.”

The velvety dress on display as a part of “From Africa to the World” was the first dress that Imane fully designed and sewed for this mother. She wore the gown to attend a formal event celebrating the National Day of Cameroon.

In 1987, at 19 years old Imane travelled to Europe for the first time as a dancer with the Ballet National du Cameroun. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Paris to work as a model. Modeling led Imane back to fashion. His choice to turn to fashion design is often cited as a transition from dancing and modeling, but a truer telling might consider that he simply continued toward fashion from those early days of investigating the structure and magic of his mother’s clothes, drawing new forms and cultural inspiration along the way. The full story is a years-long journey that is reflected in his work. The long story of lineage and life is seen in his garments. Each piece seems to tell a story of its own, telegraphing a memory, a cultural history, a thought, or maybe the simple insistence that fashion and remarkable beauty exist in abundance outside of the fashion houses and beyond the cities on the calendar.