Fashion brand H&M teams up with Lemlem – founded by supermodel and women’s empowerment advocate Liya Kebede, for womenswear capsule collection. The joyful, relaxed and and fashion-forward collection was made from more sustainable materials. It explores modern elegance, and it features easy to wear designs. The collection includes beachwear pieces, swimwear, jewellery and accessories.
I love that H&M has always been at the forefront of doing really cool collaborations. So for lemlem, it’s really exciting to be part of that group of collaborating brands. It’s also a first for us to add jewellery as part of this collection and create a whole lemlem look. My creative direction included the campaign, too, which was so much fun and special because I got to shoot with my daughter – Liya Kebede, founder and creative director of lemlem.
The campaign stars Liya Kebede herself, alongside her daughter Raee Kebede, Kesewa Aboah, and Noa lensed by fashion photographer Campbell Addy. In charge of styling was Julia Sarr-Jamois, with beauty from hair stylist Cyndia Harvey, makeup artist Ammy Drammeh, and manicurist Ama Quashie.
With lemlem, you can’t help but notice its ease and elegance, which Liya Kebede obviously and beautifully embodies, too. It was wonderful to have Liya’s creative input at every step in this collaboration. We were also really happy to include more sustainable materials throughout the collection and just can’t wait to launch it around the world – Maria Östblom, Head of Design at H&M.
“For this collaboration, traditional handwoven materials often found in lemlem’s pieces are translated into cover-ups, sundresses, tops, shorts, trousers, swimwear, jewellery and accessories. Crafted from more sustainable materials including organic linen, recycled polyester and Tencel™ Lyocell, each piece is about being joyful — it’s sunny, light and breezy. lemlem’s signature stripes and colour-blocking sit alongside the key elements of fluidity and soft textures. The colour palette includes shades of blue, white, bright orange, soft pink, neons and a hint of pale yellow. There’s also a timeless feel overall in the collection, with the idea that pieces can be passed down from generation to generation.” – from H&M
Lemlem in Amharic means to blossom and I hope this is the beginning of a blossoming new era for fashion, with hopefully more sustainability, more visibility to black owned brands, more heritage and of course more of a much needed, more colorful and more uplifting wardrobe palette for our world today. – Kebede
