Kepha Maina, architect turned designer

I’m proud to share that I have started yet another exciting collaboration. The platform I will be writing for is IAM – Intense Art Magazine, a digital and paper publication focusing on visual arts, fashion, and design from Africa and the diaspora.

My first article on the Kenyan designer Kepha Maina has just been published. Following is an excerpt that I am reposting with permission from IAM.

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Kenyan designer Kepha Maina is one of the rising stars of the African creative constellation, producing ready-to-wear pieces for the empowered Afropolitan woman. Maina, who has a degree in economics from Nairobi University and was trained as an architect, is a nominee at this year’s Kenya Fashion Awards (to be held in September). In his almost ten years of activity he has launched four collections, promoting the brand as a celebration of all things adventure, travel, fantasy, and exoticism.

Kepha Maina – East African Types collection

And fantasy is, indeed, the aesthetic idiom that puts him most at ease. Maina revisits classic silhouettes, using lines, curves, and paneling to manipulate the fabric into elegant designs that accent the lite shape of the female body. The years as an architecture undergraduate and fan of African art history come to the fore in an attention to detail and passion for extrapolating the abstract, evident in a predilection for structuring and de-structuring. Like wearable sculpted layouts, Kepha Maina’s garments require a 360-degree view that reveals invisible layers and unmatched elements.

Kepha Maina – East African Types collection

Continue to the full article here.