She was born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, before she relocated to the U.S and, later to Rwanda for a short stay but nearly four years later, Luladey Takele Teshome still calls Rwanda home and it is here that her art dream fully came to life.

 Bubbly and forever smiling, Lula, as she is commonly known, can be described as someone who truly followed her heart and today, she is doing what she loves most- fusing African art with fashion.

 The sociology graduate with a minor in Business Administration, started off her career as an educator with a passion in art but later her passion for art overpowered everything she was doing, to fully focus on it.

 "I have been interested in art, and I've been painting, I've been sketching and art is just now taking over -I would say, but I remain an educator as well,” Lula says.

 "I've loved art since the beginning and my father used to encourage it a lot more. So, he used to take us to museums and art exhibitions, and I would look at big canvases and like mural work and I used to be very fascinated with that,” she adds, tracing where her love for art started.

 Lula started off by copying whatever her art-loving cousin who lived with her family used to do, replicating his work of art. At the same time, she fell in love with fashion.

Luladey with Asterie at Twinkle by Asty fashion house.

 The two passions led her towards opening her first business and brand in Ethiopia known as Qemer, which she still runs today, with a mission of incorporating art with fashion, where she adds murals, ink sketches or paintings to clothes.

 Lula did not study fashion or art in college but she did take a summer class when she was in fourth grade. She would later meet people who encouraged her to follow her heart and do art that she ended up doing it by herself. 

"I would say I started taking art a lot more seriously in 2017 and 2018, that was in the US, after I finished my 4th year at college,” Lula says, adding that she had more time to focus on art and take feedback from her friends.

 Before she knew it, friends informed friends and now people were asking for pieces. At first, she would gift the pieces to her friends but they insisted on buying them and that is when she realised that she can make money from her art skills.

A hobby turned into business

 Luladey went into art as a hobby or something she was truly passionate about, thanks to encouragement from different people.

 Lula says her art is truly inspired by who she is -an African and she believes it reflects African culture, heritage and African print

Some of the designs by the duo.  Photos by Willy Mucyo & Courtesy.

 "My art is truly African and I can say that wholeheartedly and the message that I'm trying to get across is that whenever we think about art, especially within the continent, it's very far from us,”

 "It is not something that we have on the daily or we think we can purchase or have it as part of our lives, which is completely not true because we are the creators of things and we have been the founding members of things,”

 "Just because we think it's not part of the culture, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist,” Lula says, adding that on the contrary, Africa is rich in art.

 The 26-year-old, who works as a counsellor at Maranyundo Girls School in Bugesera district says that her art mission is to make Africans embrace their culture and love it.

 Like any creative, the journey hasn’t been a smooth one for Lula, as she faces a number of multiple challenges, which mainly relate to resources and tools.

 "For me who just needs paint, getting paint is very difficult as most paint is also imported from somewhere else and when it's imported, it becomes twice or three times expensive to get,” she says, adding that artists may not be financially equipped to actually purchase the desired paints.

 The other challenge relates to the lack of understanding of the pricing of art products by most people, with many not being able to appreciate how much time and resources artists put in, which determines the pricing.

 She however says that the future is promising because today you have people who are looking to buy local products as opposed to imported goods.

Falling in love with Rwanda

 Luladey arrived in Rwanda nearly four years ago as a career counsellor, initially to join the girls’ school funded by the same U.S donors she was working with, who conceived the idea of bringing her to start a similar program here.

 Upon arriving in Rwanda, Lula saw other outlets to create, and to continue to cultivate her creative side.

 Lula has joined forces with Astérie Hitimana of Twinkle by Asty Fashion House for a project dubbed ‘Untitled’ that fuses art and fashion. It was launched on February 26.

 "We actually named it ‘Untitled’ because we wanted to engage the audience and our customers. We wanted to engage other Africans, to actually have a say in what we were creating,”

 "It came from the desire to merge art with fashion, and trying to create something new and fresh that is for Rwanda. Initially, what we had in mind was we would have an art piece as well as a collection and we would have that out,” Lula says.

 Lula collaborated with Hitimana, who has been in the fashion industry for five years, to give fabrics a local and artistic touch at the same time. The duo is making clothes which they believe makes an ‘African’ statement whenever one wears them.

 The Ethiopian-born educator and artist does not see herself leaving Rwanda in the near future.

"I truly love Rwanda and I came here initially for three months, and I'm here for three and a half years now. So that says a lot already,”

 "I don't know how much longer I will stay here, but I know even if I leave, that will not be my last time, this is another home,” the jolly artist says.

 On her part, Hitimana says that she partnered with Lula because she realised it would be easier to achieve her dream of making people look and feel beautiful and great about themselves through fashion.

 "I think the main reason I'm in fashion is to make people feel beautiful, feel unique and feel loved because I think everyone can shine, everyone can feel beautiful,” Hitimana says, adding that there was no better way to do it than adding a touch of art.

 Along the way, the duo became good friends as their dreams aligned. Having started out just the two of them, today they are a team of six people (tailors) and a receptionist and they look to employ even more people as ‘Untitled’ picks up.