LONDON: French-Tunisian fashion designer Azzedine Alaia will be honored by London’s Design Museum with a major exhibition next year following his death on Nov. 18 at the age of 77.
“Azzedine Alaia: The Couturier” will run from May 10 to Oct. 7, showcasing more than 60 pieces personally selected by the iconic designer.
“Azzedine Alaia was recognized throughout his life as a master couturier who expressed the timeless beauty of the female form in the most refined degree of haute couture,” the museum said.
“The Design Museum will now present this unique exhibition planned by Alaia himself, exploring his passion and energy for fashion as he himself intended it to be seen.”
Alaia was born to a farming family in Tunisia in 1940 and studied sculpture at the fine arts school in Tunis before working at a modest neighborhood dressmaker’s shop.
He rose to fame in the 1980s, refusing to march to the beat of international fashion weeks and instead releasing his collections in his own time, with scant concern for publicity.
He became known as the King of Cling for his form-fitting gowns.
“I like women,” he told AFP in a 2013 interview.
“I never think about doing new things, about being creative, but about making clothing that will make women beautiful.”
London museum to honor Tunisian fashion giant Alaia
London museum to honor Tunisian fashion giant Alaia
France returns colonial-era ‘talking drum’ to Ivory Coast
- The drum is to be exhibited permanently in a new museum being built in Ivory Coast’s commercial capital Abidjan
PARIS: France on Friday handed over a “talking drum” looted by colonial troops from Ivory Coast in 1916 in the latest repatriation of stolen artefacts.
The Djidji Ayokwe drum, more than three meters (10 feet) long and weighing 430 kilos (950 pounds) was used by the Ebrie tribe to transmit messages.
It is one of hundreds of objects France is preparing to send back to Africa, with the efforts set to be accelerated by the passing of a new law to authorize mass repatriations.
“All of Ivory Coast is ready to welcome it,” Ivory Coast Culture Minister Francoise Remarck said at a ceremony in Paris with her French counterpart Rachida Dati.
Remarck added that she was “extremely moved” by the “return of this symbol” that is “finally coming back to its homeland.”
The drum is to be exhibited permanently in a new museum being built in Ivory Coast’s commercial capital Abidjan.
France has been flooded with restitution demands from former colonies such as Algeria, Mali and Benin.
Its national museums hold tens of thousands of artworks and other prized artefacts that were seized or purchased during the colonial era.
European nations are slowly moving to return a limited number of looted artefacts in a bid to build bridges with their former colonies.
