Cameroon-born, Paris-based designer Imane Ayissi has always been something of an early starter. As a child, he used to cut up dresses belonging to his mother, Julienne Honorine Eyenga Ayissi, the first ‘Miss Cameroon’ following the country’s independence in 1960, to understand how they were constructed. He credits her with having triggered his love of fashion and she has remained his muse ever since: “She’s so elegant, not only because of her fashion, but the way she carries herself; she emanates strength and grace.”
Ayissi started his eponymous label in 2004 after relocating to the French capital to work as a dancer and model - walking for the likes of Dior, Givenchy and Lanvin. Although he initially created looks for private clients, he has since gone on to show at several international fashion weeks, including Lagos, Dakar and Shanghai. He also has showrooms in New York and Paris; and his ready-to-wear cocktail dresses, crafted from Faso Dan Fani (Burkina Faso’s national textile), can be found at Alára and frequently described as Lagos’s answer to the iconic Colette in Paris.
When Vogue meets Ayissi in his studio in the increasingly hip neighbourhood of Strasbourg Saint-Denis, he is surrounded by his creations and statues from Cameroon. These are heady days for the 51 year old. This week saw him present his spring/summer 2020 haute couture collection as a guest designer on the official schedule for the first time, making him only the third African designer to do so after Alphadi (Nigeria) in 2004 and Noureddine Amir (Morocco) in 2018. “I’ve worked very hard to get to this point. It was my third time trying and it worked! It was a very touching moment,” he says of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode’s (FHCM) strict rules and regulations. Both Saint Laurent and former FHCM chairman Didier Grumbach endorsed his candidacy and pushed for his profile to be accepted as part of this season’s calendar.
Ayissi is making a name for himself for delivering a modern, complex and sophisticated vision of Africa. “Africa isn’t a country, it’s a continent! We deserve better than these simplistic clichés, which sadden me,” he explains. “It’s my mission to show how hugely diverse our cultures are: in Cameroon alone we have over 200 dialects; there is a profound complexity that I want to celebrate.” His clothes, which revisit traditional textiles, albeit applying distinctly haute couture know-how and fluid, pared-down aesthetics, have been worn on the red carpet by the likes of Zendaya, Angela Bassett and Aïssa Maïga. Think Ghanaian kente (handwoven cloth with geometric patterns); raffia from Madagascar on hemlines of kaftan-like dresses; obom (fabric made from the bark of a tree) fashioned into flower embellishments; Jackie Kennedy-style coats cut from bògòlanfini (Malian fabric dyed with fermented mud), and ndop (resist stitched, indigo-dyed cloth from Cameroon).
Narratives are woven into the very fabric of Ayissi’s designs, some with a dose of acerbic wit. Take a blazer in tie-dye made using a technique nicknamed “My husband can afford it” - a symbol of wealth, which the designer welcomes with a smile. On a more altruistic level, many of the fabrics are sourced in close collaboration with cooperatives, such as Xoomba, based in Burkina Faso, they specialise in ethically produced eco-conscious organic cotton. As Ayissi’s head of studio, Jean-Marc Chauve puts it: “Imane isn’t far from someone like Dries Van Noten, who might use baroque textiles, but in a minimalist way.”
Inspired by the likes of Grace Jones, Yves Saint Laurent’s late muse, the Guinean model and activist Katoucha Niane and French actress Fanny Ardant, who he performed alongside in Antoine Bourseiller’s 2002 production of the Jean Racine play, Phèdre, Ayissi is endlessly fascinated by the way the body interacts with a garment, and how that garment changes depending on the wearers’ physicality. “The way every body; skinny or voluptuous, gives a different interpretation and life to each garment is magic to me,” he says. “I want to dress women of all races, identities, backgrounds while helping to represent Africa in a new light.”
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