Adam Elyassé

Born 29th April 1995 British

Khāmsin

This collection is a conversation between dual identities in the diaspora of African & multi-racial British heritage. Adam spent his entire life split in half between London and South Morocco, a juxtaposition of two different environments that posses visual semiotic notions of communication. The goal was to give a home by design to this diaspora that has spread like the khamsin wind: A constant, oppressive battle of sand in a harsh environment that spreads its reach through conflict, a symbolic world as a home for characters that have lived in Adam's head as archetypes expressing the sensibilities of the diaspora he comes through modular clothes that powerfully merge function, symbol and communication.

ITS Responsible Creativity Award powered by Allianz

The ITS Responsible Creativity Award powered by Allianz assigned €10,000 to a fashion, accessories or jewellery applicant.

Award Motivation

Adam is someone who is re-evaluating his ethnic heritage, the challenges of a landscape imposed on people of a certain area, removing any limitations of sex or gender and confronting the environment without ever loosing his artistic fingerprint, his style and his own journey, which can all be seen throughout the concept. At the end his work is extremely technical with an evident do-ability that is also part of it, with this kind of patchwork of shapes, and I found an amazing balance between exploration, origin, problem solving, personal conflict and resolution. And it is all really intriguing and really strong. I also think that this idea of clothes exploring the harsh realities of the environment is an extremely relevant discourse, not because of the idea of sustainability or environment or that we are building these kind of Waterworld or Dune-like landscapes where our earth is going to become increasingly uninhabitable, not because of that. It’s because there is this general idea, even in contemporary commercial fashion and accessories, that your clothes actually have a purpose in the outdoor world, that they help you deal with the outdoor world, and I love the fact that he’s gone into how other generations and tribes approach and deal with the realities of their environment and asked himself how do you translate that into contemporary fashion, how does that adapt to somebody who doesn’t live in that environment. The whole collection is an extremely interesting perspective on what clothes are and what they are for.