Belgium What: Clothing | Men & Women | Style: traditional, arty, handcrafted | Category: Established Brand
Akaso is a co-creation label and the brainchild of Philippe Vertriest, father of two Ethiopian born daughters and great believer in Africa’s creative talent.
From the encounter with a book on African body painting art, he developed the Akaso collaborative design concept, uniting the Kara tribe in Ethiopia with the resident Belgian Akaso designers.
The Kara people in Ethiopia are one of Africa’s most authentic tribal people and reknown for their abstract body painting art : a fascinating act of transformation, using the skin as a canvas and the earth as a palette.
From co-creation workshops between six young Kara body painting artists – men and women – and two Belgian designers rises the Akaso collection fusing one of Africa’s oldest art forms with an urban contemporary spirit.
Akaso comes from the Italian ‘a caso’ meaning ‘by coincidence’, reflecting the many coincidences that Philippe encountered on his route that brought him to the Akaso co-creation vision.
There is no coincidence in this life – just follow your intuition, however bold the path may be.
Akaso brings a contemporary language of African art, through a very novel form of co-creation where Belgian designers assist African artists to let their art form talk in a contemporary form.
For our first collections we chose to work with the Kara people in Ethiopia, renown for their abstract body painting art. Body painting is one of the oldest art forms, and the Kara have developed a visual language that is pure and transcends cultures. It is very universal.
Every print in the Akaso 2016 collection is a true representation of a drawing designed by the Kara people, either on their body or on paper. With every print you can feel the hand at work, it radiates energy.
Authenticity and simplicity flows through every Akaso design, both in the prints and the silhouettes. When we decided to start out with sweatshirts and t-shirt tops, we chose for a more open neckline cut and clean trimmings, or no sleeve seams for our easy tees. Contemporary fits of which some turned out to work on both genders.
Every piece has a different making off story, and every story had its high dose of laughter as the Kara and the Belgian designers worked together. Sometimes lost in translation, which was part of the fun.
I have two favorites: the Gusho print with the faces. A print originally created as a collage with paper strips, and named after the Kara man who designed it. Every day of the workshop we worked along a different theme, and this print was created within the theme ‘Faces’. The Kara paint the face in such a way that it seems to transform the face. In the workshop every artist depicted a fellow artist using paper strips. The Gusho face jumps out because it is so simple, a bit naieve and feels strong at the same time.
Another favourite is the print Keri Strps, designed on body. I like the asymetry in this pattern, something we see often in Kara body painting. We developed a printing technique that simulates the skin texture and the subtle light game between skin and paint light reflection.
We are a co-creation concept, where we pull from a patrimonium of print designs and stories created during workshops where the Kara body painting artists produce designs within stories defined between the Kara and the Belgian designers.
Every season, we decide on a few silhouettes and fabrics to work on. As for materials we favor materials that are made in Europe, and eco-friendly whenever we can.
All Akaso t-shirt tops are made of 70 percent Tencel, a Swiss made yarn and a by product of the eucalyptus tree, and that requires very small amounts of water during the entire production process.
In parallell we select a group of Kara print designs that tell a coherent visual story.
The silhouettes take their inspiration from that same Kara infused reference frame work. And than it all flows together.
It is an inpredictable process. You start somewhere, with a clear idea, but as you prototype, sometimes it takes you somewhere else. That is both a beauty, and sometimes also your greatest challenge.
And with Akaso I like surprising a woman or man with a cultural story, it is like a mental travel trip.
That answer has evolved as I grow older and matured more life experiences.
Right now, I think I’d love to work for an initiative that seeks to eradicate poverty or specific health issues. Not a big institution, but rather one that looks to be as effective as possible on the ground.
Dinner time with my family. No doubt.