Nasima SHAVAEVA et Abdou KHADR FAYE
Fashion designers

Abdou and Nasima received a creation grant to design a line of ready-to-wear pieces in partnership with the Atelier des Artistes en Exil.

Interview of Nasima Shaveva
What is your artistic background ?
I started to sing at age five, my family all being musicians and artists. I also joined a popular music group very early in Kazakhstan. After three years of studying music and singing, and meeting my husband, we created a band with which we toured several times in Europe and Asia. In 2015, we came to France. Today, I am also interested in fashion, with the aim of returning and showing within the Uyghur culture.

How do you see your profession today ?
For me, music, fashion and art are a way to popularize Uyghur culture. If I defend and show my culture, I make it persevere and do not let it die.

How do you see yourself in 5 years ? In 10 years ?
The mixture of fashion and music, of visual and musical colors, interests me particularly. These are two elements that constitute the identity of each region of my country, used with similar bases but very different subtleties. Thanks to this I can continue to portray my country. My art will allow me to look back and say that I have done good things for my people by showing their culture.

Interview of Abdou Khadr Faye
What is your artistic background ?
I come from Senegal, and it is there that I started to work as a dressmaker in my father's workshop, in 1987, in Dakar. I was 11 years old at the time and I did it without wanting to. My father was also an artist, fascinated by American music and dance, and he passed on his artistic sensibility to me. I continued to work for him until 1994 and I left the workshop for a while to discover other fields. I was a carpenter and a bricklayer for a while, then four years later I opened my own sewing workshop with a cousin. That's when I started to find my passion in sewing and styling. So, I took some training in pattern cutting and sewing, and started teaching the profession. In 2005, I launched my first clothing brand, Guediawaye. I did several fashion shows and won the departmental Golden Scissors twice. In 2016, I arrived in France and discovered the Ateliers des Artistes en Exil, in 2018, in which I was able to develop several projects. I am currently working on a new collection that merges, as is often the case in my work, African and European cultures.

How do you see your profession today ?
This profession has allowed me to meet and get to know many different people, personally and professionally. It has also allowed me to go further creatively and to improve my life. And I believe it can still take me further.

How do you see yourself in 5 years ? In 10 years ?
My main project is to create my own line of clothes and to compete with well-known brands, always mixing traditional African and modern European styles.

This interview was conducted in 2021
Photography credit: Julia Grandperret