by R. Asmerom
Maya Lake, Founder and designer of Boxing Kitten
When Erykah Badu rocks an outfit on stage or for a photo shoot, you can pretty much guess the flavor and style; eclectic, punchy and bold are adjectives that would come to mind. That’s just what the fashion label Boxing Kitten stands for and offers in its latest ‘Resort’ collection.
Since Badu modeled the vibrant pieces in Giant magazine’s February 2008 issue, the designer and founder of Boxing Kitten, Maya Lake, has not been short of word-of-mouth publicity and celebrity buzz from the likes of Solange, Alicia Keys and Rihanna.
Using African ankara fabrics and pleasingly bright prints, Lake is one of the few designers reinterpreting African patterns for an edgy and urbane, fashion-conscious audience.
The young designer’s sensibilities started to form early, informed by her own mother’s design savvy. “I started really designing stuff as a kid because my mom is a seamstress, and she has a clothing store so I was always interested in getting dressed up when I was younger,” she said. “It wasn’t until I was in high school that I really started actually making clothes for friends and family.”
Lake attended Wesleyan, the prestigious liberal arts college known to attract and churn out the creative types, and while there, continued to work on projects that supported her design instincts. “I worked in a costume shop, so I had the chance to fine-tune my sewing skills,” she said. “We made clothes for all the school plays, dance recitals, and that was a really good way for me to learn the craft a little better.”
Erykah Badu wore Boxing Kitten for a Giant Magazine photoshoot in 2008
Although Lake’s own mother went to school for fashion design and went on to open a boutique in New Jersey, Lake’s own path wasn’t so direct. “For a long time, I wanted to be a stylist, but I’ve always been interested in African-American studies, and the two fields to me have never been separate,” she said. “It’s never been one or the other. If I hadn’t been a designer, I think I’d be somewhere in the academic world, so this is the perfect blend.”
Beyonce in “Put It In A Love Song” Video, styled exclusively by Boxing Kitten
West Africa is definitely alive in her prints and her use of African patterns has, up to this point, contributed to her identity as a designer. After graduating, Lake went to work for her mother’s boutique, Dem Two Hands, working with inventory and and also designing and selling her own clothing items there.All the money that she made over the next few years went into the business and all the necessities behind launching her brand.
“I knew I had to have a website, and I knew I had to make samples for production, which is a bare minimum of what I needed, so I worked with what I had,” she said.
On the publicity end, Lake allowed her work to speak for itself. Word of mouth ultimately got her called to contribute pieces for a video shoot, where she met Erykah Badu. After handing over one of her creations to the eclectic songstress, Lake got her first big publicity hit when Badu wore that piece for a Giant magazine photo spread. “I didn’t even know she was wearing it. Someone just called me, and said ‘I saw your stuff in Giant Magazine.'”
Since then, Lake has gained a traction of followers.
You can find Solange Knowles often wearing her stuff. The ubiquitous music video director Melina Matsoukas is a fan of Lake’s line and plugged her gear in her videos including Rihanna’s Rudeboy and the yet-to-be released Alicia Keys and Beyonce’s “Put It In a Love Song” video, which is exclusively styled by Lake.
Considering that the video was shot in the African-influenced region of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Lake’s new Resort Collection was a complementary choice. The full debut line evokes not only Africa but also pays homage to African-American icon Josephine Baker, who melded European influences and her African-American background to become an international star performer in a time when segregation was law. In essence, the revolutionary undertones of Baker’s career and legacy manifest the spirit of Lake’s designs.
Solange is a big fan of the line
“I love Josephine because she was this really complex, multi-layered woman,” she said. “She was a dancer, she was a singer, she was an actress, she was an activist, and she was just way ahead of her time. And that’s really what I think the clothes are about, it’s about mixing all of these different things. No one woman is one dimensional.”
Baker’s feminine fashion sensibilities are clearly evident in Lake’s productions. “A lot of my pieces are burlesque-inspired. They are very bedroom, very boudoir, with a lot of corseting and boning and bra tops.”
With Lake making such a name for herself, does she worry about copycats? Certainly not. “There’s no copy-writing in fashion. You change one stitch and it’s yours as long as you’re not putting someone else’s label on it,” she said. “So I think the only thing I can do is keep moving forward, keep doing what I’m doing, because no one’s going to do it the way I’m doing it.”
Check out more looks from Boxing Kitten’s Resort Collection:
