Conversations: Anitra Michelle - Designer & Photographer

Photo Courtesy: Anitra Michelle

One of the many things I really enjoy about being an expat is the numerous encounters with people from the varied walks of life who have packed up their homes and families, moved across oceans, and settled in places foreign. It requires a great deal of resilience; an adventurous spirit; and an adaptability that does not often come naturally for some of us. So when I do meet people whose personalities marry all of those characteristics, I am intrigued.

Anitra Michelle is a designer and photographer who has decided to bloom where she's planted in Maisons-Laffitte, France. It's a long way from home for this former Brooklyn resident, but she's embraced all that France has to offer with a fervour that's truly admirable. We met at Avenue in Maisons-Laffitte for lunch to discuss her work and her upcoming first solo exhibition at the serendipitously named Brooklyn Café in the Marais. She was confidently calm considering that this will be her first solo exhibition. 

Photo courtesy: Anitra Michelle

Hers is a story about following your heart and doing what you love. She graduated from Howard University with a Bio-Chem degree, and subsequently worked very briefly in science. She admits though that she was always an artist, she had enrolled in a science degree because it was the sensible thing to do.

The creative in her however went back to school though, this time to study fashion design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. She self-funded her own fashion line- Plutocracy, managing the creative side as well as running the business – a demanding role considering that at some point her line was carried by nine stores in stores in New York, Paris, Moscow, Istanbul, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

She found that running the business took away from her creatively, which was when the idea of coming to Paris started forming. In 2012 she spent 30 days in August, something of a trial run for the real move. By August 2013 she was resident in Maisons-Laffitte, and enrolled in a one-year photography course at Parsons Paris. 

Although she had always taken pictures, Anitra confirms that she has been a photographer for just under a year. She is still sketching for her line, and although it has been a year and a half since she had produced anything for Plutocracy, the photography is feeding the creative side of her work - something she felt was being stifled before her move to France. The search for a funder for her line is ongoing, but in the meantime she is finding new ways of expressing herself creatively. 

The summer of 2014 will see her spending her time in Mexico at the Arquetopia Artists' Residency  - a choice that won out after she had considered other residencies in Argentina and Senegal.

And after that? She's non-committal on this question, but open-minded about the possibilities. She'd like to remain in France for at least three years, whilst she decides which path her career will follow.

The opening reception to her exhibition, Emerging from the Shadows, is at 7pm tonight at Brooklyn, 58 rue Quincampoix in the 4^th arrondissement.

Photo courtesy: Anitra Michelle - PLUTOCRACY 

Photo courtesy: Anitra Michelle - PLUTOCRACY  

Photo courtesy: Anitra Michelle - PLUTOCRACY