fashion

Fashion & Math Collide on This Collection From Senegalese Born Designer And Teacher Diarra Bousso

By Isa King | June 15, 2022

Diarra Bousso isn’t your average designer. She’s a mathematician, an artisan, and a former Wall Street trader, and all of those experiences have led to the creation of her lifestyle brand, Diarrablu. Her designs celebrate her rich culture, with every pattern and piece telling a story.

In her interview with Pop Sugar, she said;

“I grew up in Senegal, and I wanted to be the perfect student. I was never a cool girl or an ‘It girl,’ I was a nerd,” Bousso told POPSUGAR. Bousso is from a family of artisans. “In the summers, when I would go to my dad’s village, I’d see that work, and it’s so rich and beautiful,” she explained

Splitting her time between visiting her dad’s village and attending a private French school in the city, Bousso explained she wasn’t sure how to connect her two worlds. “I always knew that I was going to do something at the intersection of those two worlds, but I didn’t know how to do it.”

She moved to the United States to attend graduate school at Stanford University, graduating with a degree in math education and research. Bousso didn’t want to work in tech upon graduation and found herself trying to figure out how to fuse her background in math with her love of fashion.

She began doodling in her free time and realized, “I can doodle, and I can also write math code to do the doodles for me.” It isn’t common for designers to code their designs, but Bousso is creating her own rules.

“Once you write a couple of equations, by just changing a few numbers, you can create a new print very quickly. So it makes the process of drawing now very efficient because you can draw one thing, then actually create thousands by just changing the numbers,” she explained.

The equations Bousso writes create afrocentric shapes and prints that tell stories, centering on the diversity of Africa. She described the process as empowering, as she owns the production of the prints and no longer has to attend markets or trade shows for fabrics.

The Diarrablu brand is known for its oversize kaftans and dresses that can be wrapped in 19 different ways, in addition to jumpsuits, swimsuits, kimonos, and mules. Each garment is custom adjusted to one’s height, per the African bespoke garment-making tradition, and ranges in size from XS to 3XL.

For their latest collection dubbed ‘Luna’ A Summer collection, the brand incorporated free flowing silhouettes that took center stage with bold colors and of course the signature patterned prints from the brand from jumpsuits, dresses. swimsuits, headwraps and kimonos to crop tops and maxi skirt combos.

The CEO and Creative Director said this s about the collection-

“Inspired by the moon, its rich geometry, abundance, convertibility and timelessness, LUNA is a collection of versatile pieces created intentionally to be mixed and matched for a rich vacation wardrobe . To celebrate the harmonious dance between moon and sun , a new assortment of prints and colors are created both organically and algorithmically. Welcome to our sartorial celebration of celestial magic!”

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