Xuly Bët Funkin' Fashion Factory, or Xuly Bët, is a line of clothing designed by Lamine Badian Kouyaté, born 28 Dec 1962, a Mali

Mali

Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...

an fashion designer.

The Xuly Bët Funkin' Fashion Factory, or Xuly Bët, collection has been awarded with the Creator of the Year award by the New York Times in 1994 and received the ANDAM award in 1996. The collection was also a part of the Africa 2005 exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...

.

Kouyaté

Kouyaté moved from his native Bamako, Mali to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 around 1986.

He launched Xuly Bët (“Keep an open mind” in Wolof

Wolof language

Wolof is a language spoken in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania, and is the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger–Congo language family...

) in 1989, when he fell in love with the Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

ian fashion scene, while studying architecture in at Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Strasbourg (the Strasbourg

Strasbourg

Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...

 School of Architecture).

Kouyaté's knack for recycling flea market finds, and patching them together with an African sensibility is what has brought him to mainstream recognition.

He cites designers Azzedine Alaia

Azzedine Alaia

Azzedine Alaïa is a Tunisian-born couturier and shoe designer, particularly successful since the 1980s.-Biography:Alaïa was born in Siliana, Tunisia on 7 June 1940. His parents were wheat farmers but his glamorous twin sister inspired his love for couture. A French friend of his mother fed Alaïa's...

 and Yves Saint Laurent, contemporary Africa, and both punk rock

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 and funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

as influences for his funky fashions.

External links

• Revealing New Layers of African Fashion. Guy Trebay. The New York Times. February 14, 2009
• Lamine Kouyaté profile
• Xuly Bët at Paris Fashion Week Fall 2004
• Article in Essence Magazine
• Short profile at the V&A