Bright and brilliant from Benin

Kassim Lassissi, the founder of Allëdjo, has a dream, to create an African fashion label that tells beautiful stories about his continent.

His latest reverie – a trip down the mangrove swamps and rivers of his native Benin, taking in stops of pale white beaches, and an animists’ dance, where shaman are covered in huge mop like coats.
 
Hence his new campaign’s title: The Dahomey Escape, from the ancient name for Benin. Visually taping into the Yoroba culture, the transnational ethnic group that spans three West African countries.

Lassissi comes from a fashion family, his mother is a long-time importer of quality international fabrics into Benin, a key textile market in West Africa. He launched Allëdjo six years ago, immediately after exiting business school on Paris. Since its foundation, Kassim has created a total of a dozen collections, presenting twice yearly in novel formats from press presentations to annual pop-ups in Mykonos, ideal terrain for Allëdjo’s upbeat aesthetic. Allëdjo also sells on its own e-commerce site, in Paris art galleries and back in Benin each December, when international exiles and expats return for Christmas.
 
“I grew up with fabrics, my mum having travelled the world to Europe and Asia and taking the best back to West Africa,” Kassim told FashionNetwork.com in a presentation in Soho House’s basement cinema lounge.
 
“For this collection I went back to my roots,” he adds, showing a great collection of summer cocktail and beach wear.
 

This season he was inspired by the sights, silhouettes and sounds of Benin’s traditional capital – Porto Novo. The result is a clever mix of tropical fauna prints, ethnic graphics, royal imagery and palm trees.
 
“Benin is the capital of palm trees, they grow everywhere,“ says 27-year-old Kassim who prints them on soft cotton skirts and light-weight silk cardigan jackets.
 
From a photo by Irving Penn of a Benin headdress, Kassim culled a wavy print seen on silk pajama jackets and hats. Though his boldest look is a mash-up of royal symbols – from elephant to lion – seen on some great yellow viscose pants and shirts.
  
Born in Benin, Kassim moved to Paris aged two, before returning to his native country to rediscover its art and architecture, giving birth to the brand name. Allëdjo means visitor in Yoroba.
 
He is one of the more interesting talents that have emerged from Africa in the past few years, his highly wearable clothes perhaps a reflection of the fact he did not study fashion but picked up his understanding of fabrics almost my osmosis from his mum.
 
“Nature and print and pattern are what represent Africa. I think young African designers now are more confident about the future, and more determined to express their own cultures and to control their future. We don’t have so many doubts. When I was younger there were no real models. Now there are lots,” says a beaming Kassim, attired in a white perforated lace shirt.