""celebration of the two-dimensional with [a] strong use of frontal lighting. The image is perceived as an arrangement of shapes: a hat may be chosen for its geometrical line, the body framed for effect and the who image subtly etched with shadow"."

"Her portrait work was featured in leading magazines and newspapers of the period such as The Home Magazine, The Australian Women's Weekly, and The Sun."

"I'm very proud of what I've achieved so far ... I'm concentrating on my brand for the time being, but I've got so many other dreams, and I'm constantly brimming with ideas."

"I'm still the same person that I used to be, with the same passions and the same dreams. The only difference is that I've become a media target,"

"I started going out and meeting women who took me with them. I followed them a little, I saw what they said, what they did... I felt a bit like a grown-up."

"Since I was a little girl, I've had this passion for fashion and for what makes women look beautiful."

"I arrived in France at the age of 10, with my mother and my little brother. She had divorced my father. She wanted to leave Algeria to join my grandmother here. We had a lot of family problems, we didn't have a house, we didn't know where we were going to live."

"I was already behind because I didn't speak French and I was constantly changing schools. Once we had a more stable situation, I couldn't keep up anymore, I couldn't catch up. It was a shock for me because in Algeria, I was always top of the class and, suddenly, I found myself last. And all my dreams, everything I wanted to do since I was little, I knew it was no longer going to be possible. I had to find another solution."

"I was young and I wanted to have sex. I didn't want to remain a virgin. And then I thought: what options do I have? All the girls my age had a boyfriend, they were in love for a month, then they were sad, then they changed (...) I knew it was just going to be a waste of time, that it wasn't going to get me anywhere. I thought: I might as well have sex and earn something in return. I found it more exciting. And I didn't like men my age at all, I didn't find them interesting."

"Her candidness regarding personal flaws and the cycles of repression and coping that accompany conservative, middle class, Afrikaans upbringing inform much of her work, calling attention to ways in which women are silenced or otherwise repressed in that space."

"It's difficult to talk about Southwood's work without talking about the artist herself because she so unashamedly bares herself, warts-and-all, to an audience. Plumbing the depths of her conservative, white, middle-class Afrikaans upbringing, Southwood unearths a nasty cycle of repression, abuse and the coping mechanisms offered her by this society where women occupy a silent and haunted interior. Southwood's candidness about her own disposition leaves a viewer trapped between doubting her sincerity and wanting to know less about a near stranger. 'Too close for comfort', her first one person show, held in 2000, presented the viewer with this dilemma in an all too attractive way."

"She works in a wide variety of media in her artwork, producing sculptures, objects, prints, film, and more, which she often bases on personal experiences and self exploration."

"Shopping and clothing is part of my family’s culture. If something is wrong, you go buy a dress."

"If I had something I always wanted something else, I’m just that sort of person."

"Discover what you really don't know and accept change."

"Wherever we live, we are in touch with differences, which give quality to our life. With true differences, we discover what we are and we discover what we need to know about others."

"I still don’t know a lot of things and I think that this is the most important part of life."

"There’s a cultural difference, so sometimes we have boring Italian people and you have boring American people, or we have nasty Italians and nasty Americans, or we are super cool men or women in Italy and the same in America. It depends on the individual."

"I like details, but I like details that you should discover, not details that are there to be seen."

"Generally speaking, I don't like to design something that is there to be seen. I design something which is there to be felt."

"I think we needed a symbol of what is now called the African renaissance, a showpiece that is unapologetic in its approach about who we are today,...that we have people who make and consume luxury and that we have done it all by ourselves."

"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."

"There’s a great appetite for consumption of luxury goods by Nigerians, but in terms of experiential retail with a concept...that is completely new...We have definitely had to educate the customer with regard to African Luxury, getting them to pay more for African goods that they have hitherto seen as craft and substandard."

"I understand the connection: female founders, a strong and unique point of view, curated and presented with a focus on art and its interaction with fashion. But our mission is different: upliftment."

"We are selling our culture. We’ve clearly become an epicenter for cultural exchange for all kinds of creative people. In my native Yoruba language, alára means “wondrous performer, one who thrills endlessly”—that’s how we see African fashion and design, and how we want global audiences to experience it and embrace it."

"It was important for us to have an aesthetic that we believed was our aesthetic...we chose designers who reflected the ideas of bold, unapologetic beauty, [had a] conscience and celebrated craftsmanship. We realised quite fast that people wanted to pay for brands they knew and coveted and if we were to succeed we had to first of all listen to our market, get them super comfortable with us and then start to explore other brands."

"I got the impression that although people were making these things, they didn’t feel as though what they were making was good enough to be on a certain level. A lot of what people were doing hadn’t been properly celebrated and there were these very beautiful, very well-crafted African items that people didn’t know about."

"I used to spend a lot of time with artists and designers and I had a lot of friends that were doing creative things and I enjoyed spending time with them."

"I felt that we needed something iconic that would change our city, change the way we see ourselves and also change the way the world sees us."

"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."

"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 designed clothes, and I have always created experiences."

"I have a huge vision, huge passion and huge ambition."

"Going beyond luxury retail, we’ve become a platform for exchange across all the creative disciplines. Our curation is trusted, and our network authentic."

"We are women. We are meant to rule the world. We are super."

"Alara was conceived to show the world who we are today, to share how we live and to show Africans that we have a lot to be proud of, that we create and enjoy objects of exceptional quality and beauty, to celebrate those who have done it, and to support and encourage those who wish to exchange, educate, elevate and beautify."

"The luxury of having a purpose, identifying it and being able to realise it. It's rare, it's valuable and it's is covetable. That's Luxury"

"We will open people’s eyes to the incredible creative renaissance that is growing in Africa and how seamlessly it functions as a part of the global conversation of style."

"It’s about beautifully made, bright, colorful, expressive things that have a story behind them. It’s about art, clothing, and design that’s unique and beautiful. It’s African but contemporary"

"I decided it would be interesting to have the best stuff from all over the world along with the very best from Africa all in the same space to get people from outside Africa to see what was possible, but also to get people in Africa to understand the value of what they had. It was a bit of an education on both sides."

"The exceptional beauty and versatility of Timber and the variety and abundance that we have here. Again the skills of the makers. For me honing those skills to produce simple streamlined and sophisticated designs is rewarding."

"“There are over 4000 women whose lives have changed thanks to textiles.”"

"When I’m trying to define African luxury, and this is not an exclusive definition, it has to benefit the person who’s buying it in terms of its value, but it also must benefit the person who was making it and the people in that chain of making it."

"Brands I believe embody the spirit of today’s Africa in terms of aesthetic and culture, luxury and fashion brands that people know, love and aspire to own and exceptional African brands."

"My love and appreciation for beautiful things and my value for artisanal products and respect for artisanship."

"By the time I was ten-years-old, I was already weaving on a proper loom and considered a professional,”"

"I found a way to make us women powerful, by being able to earn money."

"“I always sign the work I do by myself with my name N-I-K-E and I encourage the other women to sign their work too,”"