Capturing the attention of everyone from Solange to Beyonce, Loza Maléombho is a press favourite. The label delivers quality and culturally eclectic garments to an international fashionista. The Creative Director behind the self-named brand is Brazilian born and of Ivorian Corsican, Chadian and central African decent, Loza Maléombho was raised in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. At age 13 she found interest in fashion while designing for her mother her aunts and her own school uniforms. In 2000 she moved to the United States, in order to gain further experience in fashion, she then moved to New York City where she interned for designers Jill Stuarts, Yigal Azrouel and Cynthia Rowley. In 2009 she launched the self-titled label that now stands.
Her talent has opened up doors to showcase her unique designs to an international audience, now with the addition of this exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMa). The museum is hosting its first fashion-only show in over 70 years, telling the stories of the garments and accessories that form the foundation of how we dress today. Titled Is Fashion Modern?, the exhibition borrows its name from MoMA’s last fashion exhibition – Are Clothes Modern? – which was curated by Bernard Rudofsky in 1944. This year, the exhibition features world-class designers, one of them being Loza Maléombho.
Loza is known for merging Ivorian tribal aesthetic with New York’s urban fashion. Her ties to the West African country can also be seen in the details—locally manufactured indigo-dyed fabrics, jewellery, shoes, and accessories. The brand is best described as a fusion between traditional cultures/ sub-cultures and contemporary fashion, the silhouettes celebrate the paradox of the old and the new, cultural and futuristic, but more specifically, the synergies, the contradictions and similarities between Ivorian tribal aesthetics and New York’s urban fashion.
Photography Courtesy:
Loza Maléombho
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