Alleon

Our story started a long time ago In october 2013. I went to a party where I was invited. Although the party was very gorgeous, the music amazing and the audience multicultural, I noticed that the clothing were rather monotonous and dull showing the opposite of the atmosphere and peoples feelings during the party. At the same time my closest friend Noella appears in this wonderfull extraordinary and colourfull self dress, made of african print fabrics. She was the highlight of the party, as she stands out of the “black” and “white” and was absolutely “unique” in her clothing. Further, her joyfull coloured dress reflected her well beeing at the party as well as her identity as an african woman. I ask myself, why so many people don't wear that? After giving Noella many compliments on her perfect outfit, I asked her where she got the dress? the answer was clear and simple: “I did myself, because it is not available on the market as “Pret-a-porter” but I want to look diffferent and at the end I'm an african”
In that moment the idea and the mission of the brand ALLEON, which is an anagram of NOELLA, was born.
Most of us grew up with uni colour clothing, where items have at least one or two colours in their design. We have been put in a system where big mainstream clothing brands as well as designers educate us with the perception that multicolour clothes are not appropriate and too colourfull for the day to day life or work-life.
I think there are a couple reasons for this. First, the designers and mainstream clothing brands are limited in their inspiration. Having their roots in europe & america they have other values & cultural inspiration where they built their design on and make them as a standard. And it's not that these designers and mainstream clothing brands don't care. In fact, some do care. It's hard to do anything different.
It's not only a limitation, it's a mindset. The world doesn not believe it's possible to have an impact in the fashion industry with colourfull african inspired prints, providing sustainable in africa produced products “Pret-a-porter” that is also affrodable and great. That keeps anyone from even trying.
I am trying to change that mindset. I started with this idea to build an “pret-a-porter” african inspired clothing brand that goes beyond the european & western limitations in the fashion industry by combining the existing with colourfull african inspired prints & fabrics from the african continent and to provide these products worldwide. Further the idea was that the customer orders a product, which will be delivered immediately in the requested size and a high quality. How do you create a brand like that? And could I get it done in my lifetime? How would that change things? And what would I need to do, day-to-day, as a company, as a brand, to make that happen?
I had absolutely no idea how the fashion business works or any knowledge about design and fashion, but I didn't care. I would just have to figure it out! That was all part of the adventure.
It starts with the fabric.
What are african print fabrics? African print fabrics are colourfull african prints on 100% cotton, which africans historical used to wear during tradtional celberations & big events. Depending on the quality and the design, it shows the origin, welfare & the status of the person who wear it. Until today these customs still exists and are lived.
There happen to be over 100 different qualities of african fabrics all around the world that have never been explored for how they can be combined with different uni fabrics. So I created a team consisting of a head designer to literally start to explore them by hand. The interest was finding the best african print fabric, because of their design, sustainability impact, quality and potential to make a great product, which will help me achieve the mission.
Based on our research outcomes we decided to make use of only authentic african print fabrics which are designed & produced in africa, and which are made of 100% Cotton. It's tremendous to stick to the quality of the original tradtional african print fabric. And we've been applying the best of them to make the products for our first collection.
That is our mindset.
A sewyer in germany did the prototypes for our first collection which were around 50 articles. We were very proud of that first collection. She did a technically very good job and the design with the fabrics were great. Then we run our first production which is done in the african countries. With production facilities in Tunisia, Marroco, Kenya & Congo, we take the responsability & accountability to help the african fashion industry grow physically and in its popularity.
From that moment, things changed for me and for the brand. The idea which started with a simple question turn out to a business. We published our designs and brand on the social media plattforms and received tremendous recognition for our work in multiple ways. It was at that point that something remarkable happened. Something... unexpected.
Today our products can be found in our shop in cologne, during our pop-up shops in London, Paris, Brussels, New York & Atlanta. Through our online shop as well as through partner shops we deliver our products arround the world as we know we're not going to achieve our mission alone.
Our family here is full of experts coming from the Frankfurt school of fashion & design, Students of the design school in Düsseldorf, Experts from the Fashion management & Business school as well as experts in General Management of companiess.
They are either young professionals or experts who have come demonstrated their abilities & competences in big companies in the world to do everything they possibly can, every single day, to increase the probability that, the mind-set in the fashion industry goes beyond limitations & appreciate the colourfull african inspired fashion.
So, that’s our mission. It's 4 years in the making, and we have a long way to go.