shopping bag
Designer Profile
About Me
Ashes and Empires started in Sept. 2008 by two friends, Akemi Okamoto and Maria Curran. A&E originally started as an accessories line creating spats, belts and handbags. They have now expanded into the Women's Contemporary market with their first 9 piece capsule collection!
About the Line:
The collection could be described as modern, edgy and dark with soft elements...we like combining contradictory elements and themes into our designs. For this collection we've used black, deep purples and magenta in our colorstory. Our fabrics are printed silk charmeuse, leather and silk chiffon to name a few. We've created an amazing tailored hooded jacket with leather accents, a convertible tailored vest as well as a romantic asymmetrical silk chiffon tunic with cowl neck. There is much attention to detail and emphasis on craftsmanship in our garments. These are pieces that can carry you through season after season and still look fresh and modern.
Akemi and Maria on how personal style influences the collection:
We both share a similar aesthetic, for the most part...however, we do diverge on a few things, Maria likes structure and drama, Akemi adds the feminine/girly element ;-) The collection we just finished, has a strong "femme fatale" via an Art Nouveau theme, in particular we were inspired by Alphonse Mucha. He represents the "lighter" side of Art Nouveau to us and we were inspired to use a lot of draping and color from his work. Aubrey Beardsley inspired the "darker" side for us thematically and in some of our silhouettes.