Fashion: The African dream of Adama Paris |profil.at

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10/02/2023

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Adama Ndiaye, 46, known under the artist name Adama Paris, dresses stars like Beyoncé and made Dakar the center of the West African fashion scene.

Ausland01/07/2022

The world's successful designer Adama Paris has made Dakar the center of the West African fashion scene.In her homeland Senegal, she is considered a role model for many young people.

Gabriel Pedldie is expected: a herbal seller takes her bowl off her head, the neighbor keeps her children on their laps, her husband has just ended his prayer and presses the prayer carpet between her knees.Even the man, whom everyone calls the "crazy" here, came, lifts his finger and calls: "Adama!"A chauffeur brought her here, to the Rue Corniche in a poor district of Dakar, Senegal.It is the hometown of the designer Adama Ndiaye, 46.The international fashion scene knows her as Adama Paris, in Dakar you are called the nobility title: "Queen of Mode".For the first time in a long time, she is visiting the French capital again.The diplomat daughter grew up in Paris, where she learned the tailor's craft, founded her own label and obtained international fame.And always kept the contact to Dakar.She wants to stay in the coastal city for ten days, which thanks to her also became the center of the West African fashion scene.Adama Paris gets out: "Mes Sœurs, Mes Frères, my sisters, my brothers, it's so nice to be here again."At Rue Corniche, all in the west of the city, she has a boutique.The portal is made of colorful corrugated iron, clothes in your collection are exhibited in the shop windows.The Muslim cemetery is located behind a four -lane road, behind it the sea.A few hundred meters are the westernmost point of the continent.Senegal, a former French colony and independent since 1960, borders on the desert in the north, in the south on rainforests and in the west to the Atlantic.Around 17 million people live here, today one of the most stable democracies on the African continent.Adama Paris enters the shop, her employee Fatou has previously swept long dust.It smells of exhaust gases and Jean Paul Gaultier's perfume "So Scandal".When she opened the boutique 16 years ago, not even a street led through the quarter, meanwhile photographer and designers have settled nearby.The biggest gift to her country is the "Dakar Fashion Week", which she organized for the first time almost 20 years ago.It was the first fashion week on the entire African continent.Now Dakar is the capital of fashion.

The Senegalese fashion designer and woman behind the label "Amanda Paris" gets applause for her fashion show at the tenth Darkar Fashion Week (2012).(© AFP Photo / Seyllou)

A model presents a piece by Adama Paris collection at Darkar Fashion Week (2015).(© AFP Photo /Seyllou)

Adama Paris and one of her models for the show.The designer organized the Dakar Fashion show for the first time 20 years ago.(© APA/AFP/Seyllou)

Waiting models in Adama Paris Creations before their show at the Black Fashion Week 2012 in Paris.(© Fred Dufour / AFP)

Adama Amanda Ndiaye, the face behind the lable Adama Paris (© Ludovic Marin/Pool/AFP)

Big dreams: Loumou Evans has been sewing since he was ninth.He learned from his aunt.(© MacLine Hien)

Evans and Marina on the market.The two are looking for suitable fabrics for the order of a customer.(© MacLine Hien)

Marina wears one of Evans Outfit's.She doesn't just model for him: she was already running twice for Adama Paris at the Dakar Fashion Show.(© MacLine Hien)

Adama Paris dresses stars like Beyoncé and made Dakar the center of the West African fashion scene.(© Jörg Carstensen/dpa/pictures.com)

Mode: Der afrikanische Traum der Adama Paris | profil.at

Adama Paris did it.It is internationally successful, dresses stars like Beyoncé and travels through the world.Your own television broadcaster FA TV Channel is transferred in 46 African countries and sends continuously, 24 hours a day, "Fashion Made in Africa".Her "Black Fashion Week" travels around the world from Dakar, takes place in São Paulo, Montreal, Prague and Paris, there directly on the Place Vendôme, between luxury hotel Ritz and Chanel-Boutique."I've had my stage for 20 years," says Paris to the profile, "now I want to show others how to take the stage."On some days, a public fashion show takes place on some days: women and men strut in artistically embroidered boubous through the streets, rectangular fabrics that are stripped through a hole for the head over the body.In addition colorful, elaborately woven headscarves.But also recycled clothing, extravagant designs, high shoes and transparent tops.Thanks to designers such as Adama Paris or Oumou Sy, the 69-year-old Grande Dame of fashion in Senegal, the scene is also known internationally.The two show: Those who are talented, work hard and are well educated can make the leap to Europe or the USA.They inspire young creative people, help with company foundations and give new self -confidence - also for local designers in Senegal.Senegalese musicians are increasingly deciding not to wear fashion from Europe, but to have individual pieces in their own country made.One of the trendy designers for this is the 22-year-old Loumou Evans.He recently equipped almost all the great music video throat in Senegal.He is a star in the artist scene of Dakar.Compared to Adama Paris, his career has just started.

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There was a pipe break in the street of Loumou Evans' Studio, the water is ankle -high.Taxis avoid the deepest holes, women take their shoes in their hands, raise their boubous and wade through the muddy water.Evans balances over a concrete edge to a heavy iron door and pushes the bar back.Tables, chairs and boxes with glasses are stacked in the room in which his aunt wants to open a restaurant.Until then, Loumou is allowed to set up his studio, work on the sewing machine and hang his collections along the walls."Fattah!" He says to his younger brother, "switched on the fan.It's so hot again."" I wanted to save some electricity, "says Fattah.The room has no windows, just a large door, but even that always remains closed."I want to work undisturbed, nobody should know that I revolutionize the fashion scene here," says Evans and likes his conscious exaggeration.On the wall he has a complete edition of the French "Vogue"."At some point I want to go in there too," he says.He looks at his iPhone every few minutes.26.He has 800 subscribers on Instagram customers from all over the world and well-known artists from West Africa.If you see your account, you would like to think that Loumou Evans is creative director of a small French label with its own production and various departments from advertising to sales.Few of his followers know that everything he does is created here in this small studio.Without employees, on a single old sewing machine.His assistants: the brothers Shal and Fattah, 16 and 18 years old.Here they live and also spend the night, on narrow field beds between cutting table and clothes rails.Loumou Evans did not learn in a studio in the French capital, like his model Adama Paris, he learned on the street.For tailors who have set up their sewing machines in numerous house entrances in numerous house entrances.Evans watched them as a child.Due to joy, he started sewing with his grandmother's old machine, later he did auxiliary work with his aunt, himself a tailor: narrow lanes made of fabric remnants he sewed into larger pieces from which the aunt shirts and boubous."Everyone can sew in my family," he says, "but everyone makes traditional clothes."In Dakar, this means: Sewing closer and closer to a sewing machine in a small stand on the street or sewing side by side in market halls.All work independently, there are hardly any mergers or common studios.They manufacture commissioned work, all individual pieces, sew boubous for baptisms and weddings.After Loumou Evans left the school one year before the end, he should also be like this: Schneider in a large market hall like that of the city -famous Marché Sandaga.The aunt advised him to go into the hall in which fabrics and yarns are stacked up to the ceiling, the cords turned and fabrics are woven.In the same year he was given his grandmother's sewing machine.Because he was shy, he didn't dare to go into the hall.He opened his first small room;He kept the door closed.

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His aunt announced him with the clothes and weavers, taught him how to negotiate on the market and set prices in the shop."Know your street," she advised him, "work for pocket money until people know what you can do.“At the beginning she even left him some customers.Evans quickly earned money-for.The people brought him holey clothes, Evans patched them together and covered the seam.His aunt was satisfied.She considered handing over all customers to him and opening a restaurant.But Evans declined - he decided to be different from a traditional Senegalese tailor.Loumou Evans has not slept in three days.He wipes the sweat out of the angular face, on his tattooed neck pearls the drops on."I do everything to be successful," he says, "I work without a break - when I'm big, I want to be as famous as Adama Paris."" You will make it, "says his brother Fattah," and I'll be a football professional.We will live the African Dream."He says the term in English: Like the American Dream, the African Dream should also realize almost unrealistic goals..Evans felt early on that he was different.As a teenager, he was shy and wanted to express himself exclusively through clothing.Once, that must have been about three years ago, he says, he wore a self -sewn outfit for the first time.He shows pictures on his smartphone: black sneakers painted with red paint strings, over which pants glued the signal strips of a warning vest.A faded jacket made of old fabric residues."People thought I was a star," he says, "when I told them I was from Dakar, they didn't want to believe me."This may come from the fact that Evans can be inspired by stars: he follows music greats on Instagram, in the broadcaster Fa Channel of Adama Paris he looks at how models go over the catwalk.He doesn't want to be famous, he says, but his label should be internationally successful."Nobody has to know my face, my clothes already.I want a real label in Europe or North America, like Gucci.They make courageous designs."He wants employees and a sales, a website and an advertising campaign."But I have no idea how it works," says Evans."You have to go to a school, my friend," says his brother Fattah.Evans switches music.His three budgies bobs their heads in the tiny cage in time.He sits down on the sewing machine and gets out his cell phone again.He received a video message.Anaïs, a young woman, wishes a shirt of him.He plays the video: "Have a nice evening, dear Lou.I send you photos so you know what a shirt I want."Communication in Senegal runs via Instagram and other social networks.This is probably also due to demography: 60 percent of the population are younger than 25 years.News are written on Instagram and even on the phone.Most companies do without classic websites - an Instagram channel is sufficient.This is how it works at Loumou Evans: Customers discover their account via the recommendations of friends and send your clothing requests by chat.Evans fulfills the order, packs the piece into a bag and sends it with parcel services.Pay is paid by PayPal or transfer.Basically, the oral propaganda is still the same as with its aunt-just digitally over the Internet.Adama Paris is interested in the designs of her young colleagues.When she sees Loumou Evans on Instagram, she says: "He is talented!"Young designers like him often try to get an internship with her.Paris selects according to hard criteria.She just agrees with whom she trusts an international career.If possible, the internship takes place not only in Senegal, but also in Paris, where the main location of its boutiques is near the Place de la Bastille.Every now and then Senegalese designers also stop by."Everyone wants worldwide success, but don't know how the market outside of Senegals works.How should you too? ", She says.Here, too, education is everything.A fashion school, for example, teaching much more than doing good fashion.You teach to think big."A good tailor does not have to learn to tailor from others.He learns that by itself.He has to learn to make something bigger out of his talent, "says Paris.

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Europe should not remain the only chance for the breakthrough.Adama Paris has been looking for investors for her biggest project for years: she wants to build a factory near Dakar, with 100 employees."We just want to produce what we sell.The working conditions should be as good as in France."Later she adds:" I want to build a scene here in Senegal, if we don't do it, who else will do it?We should not be dependent on the help from Europe - we do not need pity."Adama Paris wants to help her home country more self -confidence, Corona could come to the process: Rich Senegalese no longer shop in Paris or Dubai, but go to the local tailor.Paris also says: "We have to redefine success.Who determines that the breakthrough has only been successful if you have boutiques in Paris, London and New York?This is Western thinking! "Loumou Evans also believes in the African Dream.He clutches the sewing machine when he tells this story: a year ago in summer when the Islamic sacrificial festival was due, he wanted to surprise his mother.For the first time, he bought a sheep with his own money that he wanted to sacrifice.His mother was proud than ever before.Evans felt like he could do everything from now on.He decided to photograph his collection with models for the first time.He wrote a casting on Instagram, to which 110 models applied.Evans chose Marina, a tall Senegalesin who only lives a few streets further.Marina comes from an eight -member Christian family, Evans is strictly Muslim.The two became good friends.Shortly after the casting, the mother suffered seriously.She came to the hospital and died a few days later.To this day, Evans does not know what.He remained with his two brothers, for whom he now takes care of.Now his eyelids twitch, the view goes to the ground.His carotid artery pulsates.Above it the tattoos he stabbed after the mother's death.A big A for AWA, his mother.An F for fattah, an S for Shal.So from now on his label should also be called: AF-Shal.A broken heart stands for his father, whom he never really met."Let's finally call marina," says Fattah, when he didn't stand to see his brother like this longer.Evans ends the story: "I thought about stopping everything.But that didn't work, I had to take care of my siblings.Two days after her death I made the shoot with the models."Evans attacks the cell phone and calls Marina.20 minutes later she is in the studio.Your attitude is upright, your arms long and graceful.It models for Evans and Evans' largest idol: Adama Paris.Marina was already twice at Dakar Fashion Week for her.Evans has never been there.But he knows designers who have made the jump.Suddenly investors become aware or European companies invite you to internships.Loumou Evans absolutely wants to participate.You have to register by autumn.Evans saves for the participation fee: 250.000 CFA francs, the equivalent of around 380 euros.Marina, Evans and Fattah walk along a dusty road on one of the largest markets in the city.There Evans wants to get the fabrics for the order of Anaïs.Evans visits the market several times a week.Passers -by pull out their cell phones and take pictures of Marina.Geier circles above the market.The dealers have taken their calls with megafones and hung them up to their stand: "Everything for 500, everything for 500", it sounds tinny on Wolof, a language spoken in Senegal.There are camouflage materials in a shop.Colors and patterns that look like a military are prohibited in Senegal, but Evans loves to break rules.He wants to provoke."Brave designs don't take you an international fashion school," he says.He wants to work out an application folder to compete in London, Paris or New York.Dakar was too small for him.There is a local school, but there you only learn the classic craft."I want to learn to think as the successful designers," he says, "I want to know how an international brand works."Evans dreams of a larger workshop, several sewing machines and employees.Marina is said to be the first employee, he has already promised her.In the evening in the studio, he oils the machine, cleans it and spans the V-belt one..The machine sounds like a broken motorcycle.A mechanic enters the room."Lou," he says, "you meant once, you want a new machine? I have one now on offer!"- "Yes? I take it!" Says Evans.He tensions in between and begins without drawing with the design.So he will work until the next morning.Meanwhile, his brothers will sleep on narrow field beds next to the sewing machine with loud engine noises and bright light on narrow field beds.So it is almost every night."I don't believe in miracles," says Evans, "I believe in hard work.And if you work hard, you can do it.Everyone can become a star like Adama Paris."Paris also loves the night."I allow myself to say: you did it and you have to celebrate that," she says.That evening her brother invited, he opens a gym: a house on the beach with fresh, green lawn.Stand tables with delicate snacks, a DJ puts on music.A few meters further is a small beach on which numerous people frolic.It is a public place, families from poorer quarters have also come.They splash around and great, train and enjoy.At the party you are just barbed wire fence guests.Dancing behind it, guarded by security forces, Paris and her brother's friends.When it gets dark, Adama Paris is one of the first to leave the party."From everything you have created," she asks a guest, "what are you most proud of?"Paris thinks long after."My resistance," she says finally."Everything is so fragile here in Senegal.But I've been doing my thing for 20 years."A black Range Rover comes up and greets them with the light of light.It is the golf club owner, he promised to take them with them.In the background you can hear Tracy Chapman "Talkin 'Bout a Revolution": "Poor People Gonna Rise Up/and Get Their Share."Adama Paris stakes over the gravel road, the car starts.She documents the evening on Instagram.There she writes: "Living My African Dream."

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