Chanel is no stranger to putting on buzz-worthy shows, creating staging that is often talked about as much as the clothes themselves. The Paris luxury label outdid itself with its resort 2017 show, setting it against the ultimate backdrop, the entire city of Havana, Cuba. Keying into the country’s multi-cultural complex heritage, it set up the event musically with a performance by twin sisters Lisa-Kaindé Diaz and Naomi Diaz, who make up the group Ibeyi (meaning twin in the language of Yoruba).
An apt choice for the event, the two were born in Cuba and while they moved to Paris at a young age, they returned to visit the island regularly. Dressed for their performance in what we presume was Chanel, Naomi honored her birthplace and its connection to Africa, wearing a string of Santería beads, as both sung so deeply from the soul the audience was transfixed, and literally the stage was set for an other worldly runway event.
If they are new on your radar yet striking familiar chords, recently they popped up in Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” video, in a striking scene in which the two are photographed on porch stairs alongside Beyonce, as well as Amandlas Stenberg and Zendaya. Beyoncé first highlighted the duo eight months ago, when she used their single “River” to back a Vogue video clip she posted on her Instagram.
Ibeyi’s music pedigree is deep; their father, who has passed, was a Grammy award winning percussionist and their French/Venezuelan mother is a singer, and also their manager. They released their first, self-titled album in 2015, singing in English, Yoruba and a smattering of French, dedicated to their father and their older sister, who has also passed away.
