For these six fashionable trailblazers, inspiration knows no boundaries. They tell us about the places that fuel their creativity, in Ethiopia, Cartagena—and beyond.
Liya Kebede isn’t just another pretty face. The Ethiopian-born mother of two, who lives in New York City, is a goodwill ambassador for the World Health Organization, and through her foundation (theliyakebedefoundation.org) she advocates for women’s and infants’ health issues in the developing world. Kebede also recently launched a children’s clothing line—made in Ethiopia, to benefit her countrymen—called Lemlem (flourish in Amharic). This fall she’s extending Lemlem’s mission by introducing a line of soft cotton scarves, woven by hand in Addis Ababa. “These traditional looms usually occupy a one-room shack and the weavers, all men, sleep on a platform above it,” she explains. “I wanted to open a market for them to showcase their beautiful talent and the way they do things, like drying thread between two tree trunks.” —Shane Mitchell
Kebede’s Africa
Until one cold night last January, most people outside the fashion world would have asked, “Jason who?” But that was before a certain First Lady picked Wu’s one-strap ivory gown to wear at an inaugural ball. “It was more than just a dress,” Wu says. “Now, it’s part of American history. That’s the power of choice—Michelle Obama didn’t follow the rules and use someone more seasoned.” At that point, the Taipei-born, 26-year-old New Yorker, whose own uniform consists of skinny ties and classic Levi’s, had only six collections to his name. But he’s been busy ever since. Wu jets regularly to Tokyo, along with Paris and London. Most recently, he took a break in Turks and Caicos—“I was looking for inspiration for my spring collection”—before launching into another creative frenzy. He says he tends to find ideas for his defined silhouettes and flirty fabrics both in fantasy figures—his fall collection is based on the fairy-tale images of the late English illustrator Arthur Rackham—and real women, including dynamic muses like actress Diane Kruger and stylist Tina Chai. “I love dressing women of substance,” he says, “not the flavor of the month.” —Shane Mitchell
Wu’s Tokyo
“This is a personal odyssey,” says Elizabeth Kiester, who gave up her high-powered job as the global creative director of LeSportsac to open Wanderlust, a shop on a dusty alley in Siem Reap, Cambodia, near Angkor Wat, with a sister store opening any day now in Phnom Penh. An avid traveler whose father was a Vietnam War correspondent, Kiester had always dreamed of living in Asia; a 2008 volunteer vacation in Cambodia sealed the deal. “Siem Reap was an ancient arts-and-culture capital, and that creative spirit is still here,” she explains. Kiester set out to create a fashion line that is democratic in its approach (one size that really fits all), affordable (nothing over $60), and universally appealing, with a Palm Beach–meets-Phuket look. By commissioning almost everything from Cambodian artisans, she has also been helping to revive artistic traditions: a severely handicapped woman weaves $2 bracelets from plastic bottles; kids from an orphanage tie-dye $6 T-shirts; and a local seamstress creates $8 Jackie O.–style head scarves. “I love a global design dialogue,” Kiester says. —Laura Begley
Kiester’s Cambodia
“We are Parisian in soul, Parisian in spirit,” Says Pierre-Alexis Dumas about his family’s company, which was founded in the French capital in 1837 and, according to Dumas, couldn’t have been started anywhere else. But the city to which he refers is not one of hoity-toity stereotypes (even if the hoity-toity do love their Kelly bags). “The Paris I grew up in is an open place that welcomes foreigners like my mother, who is Greek. It’s a place where great ideas are born.” He sees this in the ethnically mixed neighborhoods like Belleville, in the 20th Arrondissement, where he can find the Asian food he misses after living five years in Hong Kong, and in Paris’s many museums, where he heads for inspiration. Dumas, who studied visual art at Brown University and runs the company’s arts foundation, knows them intimately. Though he jokes that Hermès was established “in horseshit” (the company began life as a saddle shop), it’s the city’s blend of creativity and refinement that the brand really reflects so well, and that Dumas finds almost everywhere he goes. —Alexandra Marshall
Dumas’s Paris
“People who come from islands have a different mentality,” says fashion designer Miguel Adrover, who grew up in the tiny village of Calonge, on Majorca, off the coast of Spain. “You feel like there’s nothing else out there, so it pushes your imagination further.” Adrover’s imagination has never been in question: Witness the increasingly challenging—and critically acclaimed—collections he produced in New York City until moving home in 2004 to get back on his feet following trouble with his backers. After taking over management of Es Jaç (13 Carrer Vallseca; no phone), a bar in Majorca’s capital city of Palma, and turning it into an exhibition space, he began working as the creative director for German eco-fashion company Hessnatur. Adrover’s strong commitment to green materials and the environment around him has made him a perfect fit for the company, for whom he has produced three capsule collections since fall 2008. “It helps that I’m connected to nature,” he says. “It’s paradise here.” —Alexandra Marshall
Adrover’s Majorca
Since launching a namesake label in 1992, Colombian fashion designer Silvia Tcherassi has developed a cult following at home and beyond for her body-conscious, brightly hued pieces with unexpected boho flair; she’s even set up shop in Coral Gables, Florida. Having originally trained as an interior designer, Tcherassi is now returning to her roots with a forthcoming furniture line and, as of last month, the first in a clutch of Tcherassi Hotels. In collaboration with Estudio Morfo architects, the designer transformed a centuries-old mansion into a seven-suite colonial-contemporary retreat in Cartagena’s unesco-protected Casco Viejo (Old Town) where, she says, “every corner is a mystery waiting to be discovered.” —David Kaufman
Tcherassi’s Cartagena
