[STYLE] LU BY LU IS NIGERIA’S NEW WAVE OF LUXURY BAGS
Get acquainted with the gender-fluid, stylistic bag brand voicing a means of luxury through an ethical and sustainable frame of Founder & Designer, Louie Akinwale. Founded in the midst of global meltdowns and uncertainty, Lu By Lu is a new wave of wearability using luxury bags to explore new boundaries of embracement birthed from Lagos to London.
Championing cultural patterns, unconventional designs and a brand spirit with heart, Lu By Lu is 2021’s bag brand to get-to-know. We’re familiar with brands screaming a washed-out heritage which no longer matters in today’s climate, whereas Lu By Lu breathes new-found energy throughout its entire existence.
Creative Director & Founder Louie Akinwale highlights the importance of African diaspora in the western world. The brand pro-actively thrives itself on bridging a community that allows people to express their higher self without limitations. Lu By Lu is designed, produced and personally-constructed across the stretch of earth that falls between Lagos, Nigeria & London, UK. Every bag is tackled with a waffle design approach, mended by hand and reuses recycled plastic in the form of faceted beads to decorate the entire bag and straps.
Lu By Lu’s contemporary bags carries a firm, distinctive silhouette emblazoned with abstract patterns, geometric shapes with a tasteful shimmer of luxury. Individually, each piece is described to feel exclusive and express its own vibrant personality made of thousands and thousands of beads by hand. Similarly to the journey of life, everything done in life has led to this point, Lu By Lu embodies this as their philosophy.
The campaign titled ‘Shifting Seas’ was inspired by a battle with cancer fought by Louie’s father. The collection made up of six hand-woven bags comes from a place of grace and vulnerability. The campaign gives a space to vibrant, florescent shapes and agile movement, all of which in one reflects the harmonious energy of Louie’s father’s attitude.
Stemming from a when a family member was working on a sample, Louie’s eye for detail and taste for style captured the potential of what these bags could be and mean in today’s fashion climate. Louie propelled the idea on his own whilst readily filling the demand needed for something new in the accessories space.
“We are all from different journeys but on the same journey. so I want to celebrate individualism as a collectivism“ – Louie Akinwale
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