As the fashion designer Moses Turahirwa recovers from an attack in Rwanda, three suspects have been arrested, and the investigation continues.
The incident occurred on Feb. 23 after Turahirwa, the founder of Moshions, had spent the day developing his new collection in Musanze, a district in the northern region of Rwanda, according to representatives from his company. The designer deferred an interview request until a later date. The neighborhood is where his company’s gorilla trekking camp studio is located and he often goes there to develop his creative projects, his team said via email.
Turahirwa was with his driver, who “normally assists with his security,” but he “never thought that the situation was escalating to the point, where they both had more than five or six men gathering around [them] to make the [alleged] assault,” according to the Moshions spokesperson.
The suspects allegedly harmed Turahirwa and the driver with machetes and wooden sticks, and they allegedly killed the dog that the driver was holding. The spokesperson said, “Moses said to him to let it go. Then after killing the dog, they came attacking to [allegedly try to] murder them too.”
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Three individuals who are suspected to have attacked the fashion designer in the Musanze district have been handed over to the Rwanda Investigation Bureau for further investigation, according to the Rwanda National Police’s commissioner for public relations, ACP Boniface Rutikanga. Follow-up questions about potential motive and penalties were not acknowledged by him Thursday.
The Moshions’ spokesperson claimed that the police do not suspect that Turahirwa was targeted, and have indicated that it was related to a dispute with some of the villagers over the dog and sheep. “That’s exactly how it got started,” the spokesperson claimed, adding that Tuhariwa has not yet gone to give his statement to the police.
The designer has not yet decided when he will return to work, but the hope is that will happen next week. As of now, Turahirwa’s March 13 exhibition in his home village of Nyamasheke has not been postponed or canceled. The Moshions store in Kigali, Rwanda has continued to operate under normal operating hours since the incident happened. “Every day, we have many people coming around to check in for news [about how he is doing,] but he is not personally reachable at this moment,” the spokesperson said.
Days before the incident, on Feb. 21, John Legend wore a Turahirwa-designed ivory-colored floor-length ensemble with blue accents to perform at the Move Afrika concert in Kigali, Rwanda. The contemporary tailored garment was reminiscent of traditional Rwandan Umushana, a style he first explored with his spring 2023 gender-neutral collection.
Turahirwa first became intrigued with fashion as a primary school student, watching his mother and aunts embroider, knit and sew. With few opportunities for a fashion education, he studied engineering and took sewing lessons in his hometown. The designer started his own brand in 2015 and enrolled in a Polimoda master’s course in collection design during the pandemic shutdown. He often enlists local artisans and uses traditional techniques such as draping, crochet and embroideries for his designs. Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and actor Ncuti Gatwa of Netflix’s “Sex Education” series are a few of the notables who have worn his designs.
The designer, who previously participated in Pitti Uomo, had his own brush with the law in Rwanda. In the spring of 2023, he spent two months in jail for what was described by his spokesperson as “the digital passport copy incident.” Turahirwa was reportedly charged after posting on Instagram that the gender on their passport was changed. Asked Thursday about the designer’s pronoun preference, the spokesperson said, “Moses doesn’t really mind about gender pronouns much, but sometimes prefers ‘them.’”
In a 2022 interview with WWD, the creative said Moshions is about “the slowness of fashion. Time has come for fashion to celebrate its makers…every single step from design to the final product is really for the people who work with me.”
