I devote a lot of time reading about and consuming the different art forms that we live with. I have tried to paint, I have made furniture, I have de… - Reni Folawiyo

I am surrounded by beautiful products with great history culturally and was always inspired by our own version of Luxury. I felt we needed a platform that challenged us into making traditional luxury objects covetable by ourselves and the rest of the world. Also I looked around and saw that we have great taste and love of Luxury but not many people were investing in retail in a formal way. I am also aware that Luxury Retail is becoming very experiential and that creating our own unique version of luxury retail will be interesting educative and inspiring.

ALÁRA was created to be a window to the world, an authentic curation of contemporary Africa...[it is also] a symbol of my personal journey of self affirmation and belief...a fulfillment of a burning desire to celebrate and elevate a lot of what I had come across on my journeys in Africa.

I taught myself to make furniture and then started a furniture factory that still exists. But I realized I wanted to be around creative people. I started to travel within Africa, and discovered people making fashion and design pieces that were contemporary iterations of what you see traditionally—not what we would call contemporary in the Western sense, but in our context. And I thought that was very intriguing.