Video | 59:37 In Conversation: Imane Ayissi and Alexis Walker
Meet designer Imane Ayissi, a leading figure in contemporary haute couture and Alexis Walker, Associate Curator at the Museum
December 17, 2025
Conversation only available in French
As part of the exhibition Africa Fashion, the McCord Stewart Museum is partnering with the Centre culturel afro-canadien de Montréal (CCAM). Watch this virtual conversation, presented on December 17, 2025 with designer Imane Ayissi, a leading figure in contemporary haute couture. Moving between Paris and the African continent, Ayissi has developed a distinctive aesthetic that blends traditional textiles, couture craftsmanship and a commitment to sustainable, decolonial fashion. Having trained as a dancer with the National Ballet of Cameroon and worked as a model for major luxury houses, he is now a celebrated couturier featured at international Fashion Weeks. His work explores cultural exchange and the storytelling power of African materials.
In conversation with Alexis Walker, Associate Curator at the Museum, this event will explore Ayissi’s sources of inspiration, his relationship to textile heritage and his vision for haute couture that reimagines the ties between modernity, identity and a global world. A rare opportunity to hear from a designer who is reshaping African fashion on the international stage.
Africa Fashion
Organized by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, this exhibition—one of the largest ever dedicated to African fashions—invites audiences to experience the creative energy of designers from across the African continent.
From the turn of the 1960s to today, the exhibition features men’s, women’s and gender fluid fashion and accessories, that together bear witness to both the foundational role that textiles, clothing and body adornment have played in African cultures.
About
Imane Ayissi
Imane Ayissi was born in Cameroon into a family of artists and athletes.
While beginning his career as a dancer with the National Ballet of Cameroon, he also immersed himself in fashion—a passion inspired by his mother, a former Miss Cameroon—and became a designer for the country’s largest ready-to-wear manufacturer.
For several years, he collaborated with renowned choreographers and international artists, including Patrick Dupont, touring extensively around the world. At the same time, he continued creating dresses in Cameroon.
Ayissi moved to Paris in the early 1990s, where he launched a modelling career and walked for some of the most prestigious luxury brands, including Dior, Lanvin, YSL, Valentino, Givenchy, Cardin and Montana. He also appeared in advertising campaigns and numerous fashion editorials. During this period, he chose to devote himself fully to couture.
Today, Imane Ayissi creates haute couture pieces made to order, as well as luxury ready-to-wear distributed in South Africa, Cameroon and Japan.
He has presented collections in Rome as part of AltaRoma and is a regular at major African Fashion Weeks (FIMA, Arise in Lagos, Nigeria). His latest collections are showcased in Paris during Haute Couture Week.
Alexis Walker
Alexis Walker joined the McCord Stewart Museum as Curatorial Assistant, Dress, Fashion and Textiles in 2015. She has a BFA in Textiles from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and an MA in Fashion and Textiles Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. She is particularly interested in the intersections of contemporary fashion with art, music, film and pop culture.
She was curatorial assistant for Fashioning Expo 67 (2018), co-curator of Jean‑Claude Poitras: Fashion and Inspiration (2019), a joint exhibition with the Musée de la Civilisation, and curator of Parachute: Subversive Fashion of the ‘80s (2021), for which the Museum won the Costume Society of America’s 2023 Richard Martin Exhibition Award.
In addition to her curatorial work, Walker is an embroidery and textile artist as well as a former fashion and costume designer and stylist. She has taught fashion history at George Brown College in Toronto and LaSalle College in Montreal. She is a member of both the Costume Society of America and the Association of Dress Historians.
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