Case Study: XULY.Bet

Lamine Kouyate is one of the most recognised African fashion designers on the international market.

He was the first designer to create a collection with Puma. He has worked with Absolut vodka and Leclerc and showcased his designs at the V&A museum in London in 2005 (Showstudio, 2021)

Recycled clothes

Kouyate uses no immediate reference to Africa in his designs, but his personal story, upbringing in Africa, and attachment to the continent influence his approach to fashion design. The constant element of his fashion brand is the use of recycled clothing as his raw material. He takes second hand clothes, reconstructs, readapts, reshapes them to suit his vision, and sells them under the brand label “Xuly Bët.” Deconstructed clothes are assembled using bright red threads, stitched outside the garment, and deliberately left hanging. This shows how clothes have been produced; the thread traces the history and chronology in Kouyate designs.

Recycling and the use of second-hand clothes are common practices across African countries. Either it is clothing imported from North America and Europe or bottles, tires and computers, etc., those “wastes” are used as raw materials to create something new. As Kouyate said “ “it’s an African, third world nations’ philosophy. To use things up. You don’t waste anything but create new from old”.

https://www.xulybet.com

Further reading:

https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/designer/xulybet

https://www.fashiondenier.com/conversations/a-conversation-with-lamine-kouyat