Colle Sow Ardo or the Queen of the Woven Cloth
Hi there!
I have decided to start a series on African designers that inspire me. I always discuss fashion on this blog, but rarely brush on the continent's designers.
Today I am started with an Icon of Senegalese fashion: Colle Sow Ardo.
Colle Sow Ardo was born in Diourbel, a city located less than160 km to Dakar. My father also grew up there so he knew of her. She started her education at Coranic School because as she said, her father did not want her to go to school. However she managed to learn french and also sewing before and after getting married. Colle Sow Ardo was a model before becoming a fashion designer. She left her country for Tunisia, then integrated the French school "Institut de Coupe et de Haute Couture de Paris", which she graduated in 1982. She first worked in Couture houses in France, which designed wedding dresses mainly in silk. In december 1982, after returning home, she organised her first fashion show, thus opening her label in 1983.
Throughout her career, she worked hard to be where she it at. She had organised and participated in national and international fashion shows, she has dressed celebrities and important political figures, she has had contracts with major companies such as Air Afrique when she was tasked to make uniforms for the flight crew back in 1991. As of recently, she even designed the official attire of the Senegalese football team for the African Cup of Nations in 2022.
It took years of hard work and devotion, all the while raising 7 children, but Colle Ardo managed to become well known in Senegal but also around the world. Her brand is synonymous of Luxury. It is partly due to the fact that she specialized in Haute Couture but also Luxury ready to wear.
However, what she is most known for is her use of woven cloth to make modern clothes. In Senegal, we have a tradition of using woven cloth. But the use was restricted to wraping blankets for babies, to bury the dead in some ehtnic groups like my Mother's, or as wrap around skirt underneath the Bubus. Colle Ardo Sow is one of the first fashion designer to use it as embellishment in her clothes. She turned the use of woven fabric as something traditional and consequently old, into something new and modern. She wanted to use weaved cloth also as a way to showcase the "savoir faire" of the Senegalese weavers. Furthermore, she also wanted to use fabrics that were local as opposed to the ones made in Europe and Asia.
She credits her passion for woven fabric to her grandmother. The later would bring in weavers from Fouta (nothern region in Senegal) who would made her loincloths. According to Colle Ardo, her grandmother had trunkload of them, just for the pleasure of giving them away, at weddings or baptisms. At an early age, she was pushed into the world of traditional and artisanal fashion, dealing with local weavers. Once she became a fashion designer, she hired weavers with whom she works closely to create the perfect patterns for her designs.
In 2003, to celebrate her 20 years in the fashion world, she had the idea of organizing an event to bring together the big African brands; She called the event SIRA vision, with the intent to promote Senegalese and African designers. She has also opened a design training school and a manufacturing unit. She did set up shop in Downtown Dakar but now has a boutique and a restaurant near Sea Plazza Mall on the Corniche.
What I love about Colle Sow Ardo is her discretion. You will rarely hear or see her out and about in all that is happening in town. I even searched online but could not find a single active social media platform for her or her brand. However, she was and still is a major influence in the Senegalese Fashion world. I think that if designers such as Adama Paris or SoFatoo are making waves, it is also due to the hard labor of Colle Sow Ardo. She put Senegal and Dakar on the fashion map. But more than that, she helped created a certain symbiosis with other African Stylists such as Alphadi and Patheo by being a member and presiding over an African designers collective, but also organising and participating in fashion events throughout the continent.
On top of that, I also love her designs. They look simple but they are very sophisticated. I was reminded of how great she was when I saw our Ministry of Economy and International Cooperation wearing one of her designs during an official trip to Europe earlier this year. I was intrigued by the way the weaved cloth was used to make her dresscoat.
Nowadays, Colle Sow is still designing, still influencing the fashion world in Dakar. She is truly an inspiration not only for me but also for many other designers. I truly hope to learn more about her and meet her to pick her brains about fashion.
I was actually lucky to have met her once. One day, my father took me to her boutique and she made me an outfit just before I left for Japan. I am not really sure what happened but I think it was either a present or a recommandation from another friend of my father, who also knows and dresses (almost) exclusively in Colle Ardo (They all grew up in the same circle in Diourbel). The outfit was a Safari style suit in block printed fabric. But it was too big for me. I think that between the time I received it and the first time I wore it, I did lose a lot of weight. I however managed to wear it in Japan once or twice before giving it away to a friend, who was so happy. Now that I think of it, I did not really value what I had then. However, seeing the happy look on my friend's face when she received the present was priceless (She sadly passed away a few years later).
You can learn more about Colle Sow Ardo by listening to Conversations Feminines, a podcast on Senegalese influential women. It is in french though.
*** All pictures were found on the Internet. They do not belong to me. ***
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