Africa: Djibouti featured at London Fashion Week on the label for the Spring/Summer 2017 season.

Last June, in a sweeping move that could shape the way the fashion industry evolves, Maharishi founder Hardy Blechman delayed the launch of his Spring/Summer collection by six months. Instead of presenting it at London Fashion Week from June 10 to 13, 20167 he preferred to unveil it to the public during the LFWM from January 6 to 9, 2017.

Although other labels have been slow to follow suit, the 'see now, buy now' phenomenon is on the rise in a move that means consumers won't have to wait six months for the latest items. Which, in the case of Maharishi's Spring/Summer 2017 production, takes the form of a vibrant collection influenced by North African and Djiboutian garments that benefit from a rich palette of ocher, terracotta and coltan black. Sent to the track with an African-inspired soundtrack hosted by North London producer (and Frank Ocean collaborator) Vegyn, and as lead artist Emmanuel Jal, a musician and former South Sudanese child soldier born in 1980.

Maharishi's new collection was one of the undisputed highlights of London Fashion Week Men's January 2017 – LFWM.

According to interviews that the founder of Maharishi, Hardy Blechman, gave to the media, he chose for his collection of the Spring / Summer season traditional African clothes adapted to the requirements of time and fashion. The djellaba was the highlight of the collection with an adaptation to North African and Djiboutian styles.

Maharishi chooses each season a new theme that relates or touches a particular situation in a region or country of the world and that adopted for the Spring / Summer season was "Tour of Africa". In one of his media interviews during Fashion Week nights, Hardy Blechman explained his choice of themes like this:

“I started with the subject of the Vietnam War which takes place in the 1960s, which was a symbolic war and the first to be shown on television. It's also one of the first wars where people brought back souvenirs of "tour jackets", one of our first inspirations: the tiger stripe pattern in this collection was the American pattern from the Vietnam War and the naive embroidered map is symbolic of the Vietnamese tour jacket. For this Spring/Summer 2017 collection, the tour is from Africa and refers to the news that the Chinese have opened a military base in Djibouti, after those of the Americans, the French and the Japanese. Over 1% of Djibouti's population is currently foreign soldiers, who are believed to be there to stabilize the region. The second point of reference is the civil wars in the Great Lake region that displaced people in a mad rush to exploit Coltan resources. »

Hardy Blechman, who was in the international business of military and industrial surplus clothing, established the Maharishi Company in 1994. It produces hemp and other natural fiber clothing as well as recycling workwear and military surplus. The name of the company and the use of natural products for making clothes refers to the famous Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, born Mahesh Prasad Varma or Mahesh Srivastava depending on the source, who is an Indian spiritual master who founded the Transcendental Meditation movement.

Hasan Dear