Valentine Avoh

Valentine Avoh is a Belgian fashion designer of Ivorian descent. She is a wedding dress designer, writer, journalist and photographer. She started her own label in 2015 after working for fashion designers Alexander McQueen, Samantha Shaw, Alexis Mabille, Sam Andrès Milano, Spanish wedding dress label Pronovias and designer Marc Philippe Coudeyre. Following the social movement Black Lives Matter in the United States, Valentine Avoh has been published in The Coveteur and The New York Times as a young and talented European Black female bridal designer and on Brides (magazine) as one of the "20 Black Wedding Dress Designers to Know" in 2021.

Career She had her first working experience at Alexander McQueen as an intern at the design studio for two seasons until her final collaboration for the collection Spring-Summer 2010, which was the last collection done by McQueen during his life. At Alexander MQueen, Avoh discovered the importance of taking time: “I learned the importance of time, to design beautiful things you need to slow down”. This six months internship was decisive in her career: “Working at McQueen was really life-changing for me, as I was fascinated by his creative process and the patience put into each of his pieces, but more importantly, how he worked each fabric and transformed it to make it its own. As having my own business was something I’ve always wanted since childhood, the idea kept flourishing in my head until 2015, when I finally decided to launch the brand and opened my atelier in Brussels.” (The Coveteur, 2020) The design “Jackie” became very successful and confirmed her wish to evolve as a bridal designer.

In 2014, she made two dresses for Queen Mathilde of Belgium under the name of fashion designer Marc Philippe Coudeyre, she was at the time his head of atelier and developed the patterns and sewn the dresses after fitting sessions with the Queen Mathilde of Belgium. Queen Mathilde of Belgium wore her dress during the 2014 edition of the celebration of the Fête Nationale Belge during the National ball. The Queen has worn this dress several times thereafter. In 2015, Valentine Avoh founded her eponym label in Brussels and then opened her own space in 2017 called “the Atelier Valentine Avoh”.

Atelier Valentine Avoh Valentine Avoh's inspirations are often extracted from movies from the 30s to 50s when women were ultra-feminine. She is inspired by actresses like Jean Harlow, Marlene Dietrich and Dorothy Dandridge. She describes her style as minimal playing with see-through fabrics such as silk, lace, tulle and materials like feathers and delicate embroideries. “I think of my dresses as red carpet pieces, designed to make a strong impression, but more importantly, they are for all the women who wish to highlight their femininity without compromising ease.” (The New York Times)