Awa Meité is a fashion and textile designer based in Bamako, Mali. Meité works primarily with cotton and leather, adapting traditional craft techniques for her contemporary fashion designs. The brand works closely with local artisans, weavers, seamstresses and leatherworkers and all pieces are made entirely within Mali. Awa Meité sees her fashion collections as a way of supporting local hand skill and connecting her customers with the precious craft processes applied in her designs.

Cotton is integral to Awa Meité’s collections. She is inspired by the process that takes cotton bolls from plant to cloth and seeks to highlight the unique qualities of cotton through her designs, aiming to expand her customers’ knowledge and appreciation of the material. Mali is the largest cotton producer on the African continent and the industry employs around three million people, however, less than 5% of the cotton grown in Mali is processed within the country and is instead exported in its low-value, raw form. Meité seeks to change this by supporting local processing from field to loom, therefore maintaining jobs and enabling cotton production to provide higher income to local communities.

This ensemble is from Meite's Spring/Summer 2020 collection, first shown at Lagos Fashion Week in 2019, Meite's first catwalk show.