Fez — Moroccan artist and fashion designer Loubna Ayouche has built a creative universe at the crossroads of art, fashion, and lifestyle. 

As founder and creative director of “Loayo,” she is known for transforming original paintings into wearable pieces and, more recently, objects designed to inhabit everyday spaces.

For Ayouche, fashion is not a separate lane from her art practice. It is the continuation of it, a way for emotion to move beyond a canvas and into lived experience. “Fashion is my canvas, it allows my art to move, to be worn, and to live with people,” she said in a written interview with MWN Lifestyle.

Her story begins with painting, where color, texture, and emotion became her first language. Over time, she said, the stillness of the wall started to feel limiting. The work seemed to ask for movement, for form, and for a life that could travel with people rather than remain fixed in a frame.

Fashion as an artistic necessity

Ayouche describes her move into design as a natural evolution rather than a strategic pivot. Clothing, for her, became a living surface, one capable of carrying emotion through motion, presence, and individuality.

That philosophy shapes how she creates each piece under “Loayo.” The process begins with an artwork and then evolves into a garment through an approach she characterizes as intuitive yet thoughtful, where material, structure, and movement translate what the original painting holds.

The result is fashion intended to feel personal and soulful, often produced as one-of-a-kind creations or limited editions. For Ayouche, exclusivity is not about scarcity for its own sake, but about protecting meaning. “I don’t believe in mass repetition. Each piece carries its own energy, just like a painting,” she said.

An art practice that extends beyond clothing

Alongside her fashion work, Ayouche has continued to exhibit her artwork internationally and create sculptural works that have been collected beyond Morocco. She credits those experiences with expanding her understanding of form, texture, and materiality, qualities that also inform how her garments are built and how they move on the body.

Her design language draws from that broader artistic practice, treating fabric and construction as part of the message rather than an afterthought. In her work, the artwork is not simply printed onto clothing. It is translated, shaped, and carried through choices that affect how a piece feels in motion and how it sits in real life.

A global path shaped across continents

Although Moroccan by origin, Ayouche’s creative journey has unfolded internationally. She has lived and worked across Russia, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France, South Africa, and now Asia, experiences that have shaped how she thinks about identity, audience, and what fashion can communicate.

Her work has been presented in different countries and contexts, including fashion platforms in South Africa and more recently in Asia. Those moments, she said, reinforced her belief in fashion as a universal language that can travel without losing its roots. “Presenting my work internationally taught me that fashion can speak beyond borders, while still staying true to who you are,” she said.

Today, based in Kuala Lumpur, she continues building “Loayo” as a bridge between cultures, with an international perspective that still returns to Morocco as an anchor.

Morocco as a constant presence

Even as her work moves across geographies, Ayouche describes Morocco as a steady influence, present in her palettes, her sensitivity to material, and the emotional tone she aims to embed in each piece.

“Even when my work travels internationally, Morocco always travels with me, in the colors, the textures, the spirit,” she said.

She links that connection to heritage as lived experience rather than a fixed aesthetic, pointing to attention to craftsmanship and a preference for depth over trend. Morocco, in her framing, is not a theme that appears occasionally. It is a foundation that shapes how she approaches warmth, richness, and feeling in design.

Color as a tool for connection

Color sits at the heart of everything Ayouche creates, and she describes it as emotional rather than decorative. Her palettes are bold but intentional, designed to carry warmth, joy, and memory rather than simply fill space.

“Color is emotional for me. It’s how I spread joy, warmth, and connection,” she said.

In her vision, color becomes a language of its own, a way to translate inner landscapes into something visible and wearable. It is also where cultural memory can surface, echoing the richness she associates with Moroccan identity while remaining open to the global influences that have shaped her path.

From fashion to home and lifestyle

Through “Loayo,” Ayouche’s creative world now extends beyond garments into curated home and lifestyle pieces. She traces that expansion to the Covid period, when people spent more time in their homes and searched for comfort, beauty, and emotional connection in the spaces around them.

Allowing her art to inhabit interiors, she suggests, was a natural continuation of the same philosophy that brought her from canvas to clothing. The goal is not only to bring meaning to what people wear, but also to how they live, creating pieces that feel intimate, warm, and story-driven.

Today, she frames “Loayo” as more than a fashion label. It is a creative dialogue between art and fashion, tradition and modern life, heritage and global expression. “Loayo is about connection, between art and fashion, heritage and modern life, Morocco and the world,” she said.

In a landscape often driven by speed and repetition, Ayouche’s work offers a slower proposition: pieces made to be felt as much as they are seen, carrying emotion from the first brushstroke into the everyday lives of the people who wear and live with them.