Azzedine Alaïa and Africa

4 October 2026, by Dolla Merrillees

In this week's blog post, Costume Society member Dolla Merrillees reviews Azzedine Alaïa and Africa at the Azzedine Alaïa Foundation, Paris, on display until 4th January, 2027.

Azzedine Alaïa grew up in Bab Souika in the 1930s and 1940s, on the northern edge of the Medina of Tunis, amid its labyrinth of narrow streets, crowded markets and densely woven urban life. His childhood and adolescence unfolded against a rapidly changing political landscape, as resistance to French colonial rule intensified across North Africa, accompanied by shifting patterns of migration and displacement across the region.

By 1956, the year Alaïa left for Paris, Tunisia had gained its independence.  Arriving in France at this moment of profound transition, he entered the world of French haute couture, beginning a career that would eventually lead to the establishment of his own celebrated house. Yet throughout his life Alaïa retained a profound connection to his homeland and to Africa more broadly, remaining committed, as curator Olivier Saillard writes, to a “country — and a continent — that … never stopped fascinating him.”

Azzedine Alaïa and Africa traces the continent’s enduring presence in the designer’s imagination and practice through sixty-two distinct looks. The exhibition eschews chronology in favour of visual and material connections that unfold across more than three decades of his work. Memories of the mashrabiya latticework screens and filtered light of his Tunisian childhood surface in intricate openwork, epitomised by a white bustier and skirt (Spring/Summer 2015, haute couture) which combine geometric structure with shifting patterns of transparency.

Elsewhere, seashells, raffia and twine recur across collections, while his palette ranges from the sandy hues of sub-Saharan Africa to the lime-washed tones of Tunisian architecture. Rather than appearing as fixed or literal references, these elements are continually reworked through Alaïa’s exacting manipulation of material, construction and the body, bringing memory and place into dialogue with the language of contemporary fashion.

The exhibition not only underscores Alaïa’s deep and enduring connection to his birthplace but also reveals the wit and playfulness with which he drew upon a broader repertoire of African references. This is particularly evident in the animal motifs that punctuate his work: the sinuous, long-sleeved leopard-print dresses (Autumn/Winter 1991, ready-to-wear), in which pattern follows and animates the contours of the body; and the arresting crocodile jacket (Spring/Summer 2003, haute couture) where the animal reference is transformed into something both tactile and sculptural.

Equally compelling is Alaïa’s subversion of the safari suit, a garment with its origins in nineteenth-century British military dress and subsequently adapted for practical use during the Second Boer War.  In his Spring/Summer 1987 and 1990 ready-to-wear collections, Alaïa dismantles this colonial and military vocabulary: jackets are deconstructed and reconfigured, paired with cowrie shells, knotted fringes and linen knit bras, transforming a garment associated with masculine authority and colonial power into something altogether more sensual and provocative.

Egypt, too, provided a rich source of inspiration, most notably in Alaïa’s innovative bandelette (bandage) dresses, first introduced in 1985. Inspired by ancient Egyptian mummification wrappings, their bands of stretch fabric mould closely to the body, creating an almost second skin and earning Alaïa the moniker “King of Cling.” For Saillard, however, a long dress in earth-red raffia knit (Spring/Summer 2015, haute couture) most eloquently embodies the dialogue between Alaïa and the continent: “For me, it evokes most subtly what attests to this connection with Africa — a kind of horizon, and an aristocracy of time.”

Black also predominates throughout the exhibition. Alaïa famously regarded black as the ultimate colour for revealing the sculptural purity of a garment, stripping away distraction to focus attention on silhouette and the body.  This is evident in a long, body-skimming black dress (Autumn/Winter 1988, haute couture), austere yet sensual, with the tension between fluid drapery and Alaïa’s characteristically close fit giving the otherwise minimal silhouette its drama.

Yet within an exhibition devoted to his relationship with Africa, black inevitably carries other resonances. Across different cultures on the continent, it has held varied symbolic and spiritual associations, connected variously with ancestry, ritual, mourning and authority. These meanings are not necessarily explicit in Alaïa’s work, nor are they explored in the exhibition itself, but they offer another lens through which his relationship with the continent might be considered.

The scenography similarly seeks to evoke Alaïa’s connection to Africa through light-filled spaces, muted, dusty tones and paintings by his longtime collaborator, the American artist Kris Ruhs, creating what Saillard describes as a “sensory landscape” around the clothes. Ruhs’s earthy palette and graphic forms provide a sympathetic backdrop to Alaïa’s silhouettes. Yet for an exhibition explicitly concerned with Alaïa’s relationship with Africa, the absence of an African artistic voice feels conspicuous. Engaging an artist from the continent might have expanded the exhibition’s perspective, rather than leaving Africa largely mediated through Alaïa’s own gaze.

Equally, the inclusion of works from Alaïa’s collection of African art and sculpture could have added another dimension. Saillard maintains that Alaïa collected these objects not as sources of inspiration for his designs, but from a desire to preserve and protect a cultural heritage he deeply valued. Their absence nonetheless leaves a significant aspect of his relationship with the continent unexplored.

As with the Foundation’s previous exhibitions, Azzedine Alaïa and Africa is visually arresting but follows an increasingly familiar formula: meticulously composed displays, elegant, restrained scenography and minimal interpretation. Here, however, that restraint feels particularly limiting. For an exhibition with Africa in its title, the continent itself remains curiously absent—evoked through colour, material and motif, but rarely encountered through its histories, places or voices. Only in the parallel photographic presentation, Peter Beard and Azzedine Alaïa: A Journey of Friendship, does Africa come more clearly into view. Whether this is a deliberate curatorial strategy, allowing viewers to make their own connections, or a means of preserving the mystique surrounding Alaïa, the result is both seductive and frustrating: a complex relationship is evocatively suggested but never fully explored.

Ultimately, Alaïa’s connection to Africa was more than a matter of inspiration. In accordance with his final wishes, he was buried in the Muslim cemetery at Sidi Bou Saïd, overlooking the Mediterranean and close to his mother and sister—a final homecoming to the place that had shaped his imagination and to which, in his work and life, he had never ceased to belong.

The exhibition is on view at the Azzedine Alaïa Foundation, Paris, until January 4th 2027.

Dolla recently reviewed another of the Foundation's exhibitions along with its parallel at La Galerie Dior, which you can catch up with on our blog.