Ajiri A. Aki, Founder + Creative Director
Ajiri A. Aki is a writer and an author who grew up in Austin, Texas and lived in New York City for 10 years working in the fashion and museum worlds as an editor, a stylist, a research assistant and an associate curator for several magazines, The Costume Institute of The Met and the Museum of the City of New York.
While working on her master’s degree in decorative arts from Bard College, Ajiri first came to Paris for a love of dead people from the 1920s and spending her time flipping through dusty library archives, only to return a few years later for love of a living person and is now mother to two semi blonde children that looks nothing like her. Ajiri previously worked with fashion and luxury companies producing short videos through her company A. Spectrum Projects. She is currently co-author of the New York Times Best Seller, Where’s Karl? (Clarkson Potter), an illustrated fashion parody of Where’s Waldo featuring Karl Lagerfeld and freelance contributing writer for Tastebook, Family Jaunts, and HERE Magazine.
When Ajiri officially became an expat three years ago she often found herself feeling a bit lost (despite guide books and street maps), lonely (despite mommy clubs and bad friend dates), and very frustrated (despite Larousse and wordreference.com). Most of these challenges were exponentially depressing when she had to visit the prefecture or attempt to cook from her American cookbooks, which she foolishly hauled overseas. Ajiri thinks living as a Parisienne sounds very chic and romantic, but the transition and adaptation process could be streamlined and restyled a bit, non?
Image by Marjorie Preval