AILES D'HIRONDELLE

Fall Winter 23/2024

ANISSA AIDA… is a womenswear fashion design and accessory label that produces collections which aim to illustrate the interaction between clothes and cultures, creating a language that reflects both tradition and modernity. Through thoughtful choices concerning cuts and silhouettes as well as fabric selection, ANISSA AIDA…’s mission statement is to achieve modern sophistication together with timeless classics.

The label is primarily inspired by the culture of the designer’s home country - Tunisia - which is rich in heritage, knowledge and traditional craftsmanship. Over three thousand years of history, this culture remained open to all civilizational inflows. ANISSA AIDA… also explores the similarities between the traditional garments worn in North Africa and in the Middle East and those in the Far East: China, Japan, and Korea.

Many guiding threads seem to link kimonos, « jebbas », « djellabas », caftans, and so forth: cuts, geometry, structure, textures and colors have a common language to reflect tradition and modernity.

The Fall Winter 2023-24, “Ailes d’Hirondelle” collection is in line with the previous collections through the same color palette that consists of shades of blue and white, inspired by the Mediterranean architecture. The traditional Tunisian architecture was not the only source of inspiration for the colors. The most traditional Tunisian ceramics, the “Jnah Khotifa” in Tunisian dialect, are the matrix and red thread pulling this collection together.

These small tiles of about 10 cm x 10 cm, bicolor on the diagonal, black and white or green and white, are the most representative and most geometric of the ceramics used in Tunisia since the sixteenth century. Elements of wall covering and floor layouts, these “Ailes d’Hirondelle” (meaning Swallow’s Wings) tiles are iconic of the Tunisian architectural heritage of the nineteenth century.

This inspiration led the designer to use:

• Laser cuts and triangulated textile manipulations.
• The color blocking with angles and changes of direction on the diagonal.
• The use of the green color, from the ancestral coloring given by copper green.

Conscious about the impact the Fashion industry has on the environment, ANISSA AIDA… values sustainable sourcing, ethical employment practices during manufacture, and collaborations with artisans. The label’s mission is to preserve cultural heritage by re-interpreting local ancestral techniques, such as the hand weaving of wool called Haïk, artisanally produced in the Kairouan area of Tunisia.

This collection, as well as all the previous ones, meet halfway between East and West, past and future, tradition and modernity.