SUNO at Ikram + Maasai Street Style
Today I went shopping with my friend Meagan from LATTERSTYLE. We visited my two favorite high fashion boutiques, Ikram and Sarca. While at Ikram I picked up a SUNO dress for an upcoming event. SUNO uses Kenyan fabrics in most of its designs. I was not expecting to find a dress that resonated so emotionally with me because my mom and I visited Kenya two years ago. Now every time I wear my SUNO dress I’ll think about the best adventure I ever had with my mom.
We spent four amazing days at the unbelievably luxurious Fairmont Masai Mara campground in the Serengeti. I was able to photograph all five of the big game; a lion, water buffalo, rhinoceros, leopard, and elephant. After our safari, we flew out to the Kenyan coast and landed on Lamu Island, just 60 miles south of the Somalian border and located in pirate waters. Lamu City is the oldest African city on the Eastern coast and one of the oldest settlements in the world. Lamu City is known for being a living medieval city (with donkeys as the only form of transportation) as well as the end of the African Hippie Trail, a Shangri-La of sorts. We stayed at the family-owned Peponi Hotel in Shela, a quiet beach town outside of Lamu City. Lamu Island is a favorite vacation spot for British royalty, who value its extreme privacy, inaccessible location, and the supreme discretion of the local people. Below are some photos from my Kenya trip:
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Needless to say, it was the best adventure of my life and permanently transformed me as a spiritual being. Street style is about the unlimited ways in which humans express themselves on a daily basis. When people hear about my trips to exotic locations like Kenya and India, they usually ask how those trips affected my personal style. My trip to Kenya taught me to use LOTS of color and how to mix prints. Even today, I purchased an expensive designer dress from Ikram years later because it was made in Kenya, using Kenyan fabric! Maasai women are experts at over-accessorizing, as you can see on the intoyie above dripping in intricate beadwork, and they influenced my love of massive necklaces.
what a wonderful trip!!! i love the pic where your mom is caressing the huuuuge rhino!!! and the dress is beautiful too 🙂
Great tribal gear.
had a lovely time shopping with you, and it looks like you had a lovely time in kenya as well!
offensive. white girls like you who objectify entire cultures and trivialize a people down to their accessories, which you then coopt, are blind to both your racism, and how you perpetuate views of Africans like me, as novelties. enjoy your 'expensive designer dress' bc OMG LIEK KENYANZ TOTALLYYY. fuck you and your blog.
@Anonymous: This is a fashion street-style blog. I trivialize everyone down to their accessories, not just the Maasai. This isn't a global politics blog, and this post wasn't the place for me to delve into media stereotypes. I posted my photos of the Maasai as inspiration for my readers – the same as I do with anyone else. Only I went above and beyond my normal posting habits and posted a plethora of photos because I wanted to use my website as a platform to share the beauty of the Maasai people with my readers. Contrary to the stereotype of Africa in mainstream Western media, which often shows poverty, I wanted to show the amazing and culturally wealthy people who I met!
It is unfortunate that you chose to project your negative emotions onto me. I am sorry for whatever painful experiences led you to lash out at me on the internet. In your anger you immediately labeled me as "an offensive white girl" and lacked the foresight to see irony of your comment.
Perhaps if you had an open mind, you would see that white people can love and celebrate Africans too.