When guests arrived at the Mouki Mou store in Athens at 6 p.m. on the last weekend in May, they grabbed cool glasses of Greek rosé before retreating into the concrete-clad boutique. Its founder, Maria Lemos, who grew up in Greece, opened the shop in the city’s historic center, Plaka, in 2023, ten years after establishing Mouki Mou’s flagship on London’s Chiltern Street. In both places, she curates a roster of under-the-radar clothing and homeware brands that center craftsmanship with a tactile, wabi-sabi approach. On this particular evening, the brand in focus was Dosa, founded by the American-based Korean designer Christina Kim, 67, in 1983. The label is known for its roomy clothes in natural, hand-woven fabrics that nod to workwear such as shepherd jackets, kurtas (long, loose shirts common in Pakistan), cossack tops and dashikis (boxy tops worn in West Africa), as well as its no-waste approach to production.
In addition to showcasing Kim’s latest collection of clothes, Lemos, 59, who is also the founder of the London-based public relations agency Rainbowave, commissioned Kim to design an art installation. The work, titled “Shades of White / Whisper of Gold,” is a curtain of delicate gold leaves created in collaboration with the Oaxacan paper-making co-op El Taller Arte Papel. Each paper form was made using the impression of a bay leaf collected from a tree outside the co-op’s workshop, then embedded with wire and colored by hand with gold pencil and spray paint. “For me, white and gold mean Greece,” she says. “It’s the Greek light, and all those whitewashed villages.”
As the temperature dropped, guests wound their way up two flights of stairs to the U-shaped roof terrace which was planted with verbena, oregano, jasmine, thyme and miniature pomegranate trees. On their way, they took in the new Dosa collection, arranged on the store’s second floor and composed of gauzy kaftan dresses, delicate camisoles, loose pants and shawls, all in creamy hues with orange and golden accents. Shoes with gold leaf motifs by the Athens-based company Ancient Greek Sandals and 18-karat gold rings and pendants with roughly hewn crystals by the London-based designer Pippa Small were also on display, made especially to coincide with the collaboration. Once outside, attendees could see the acropolis on the hill above as the sound of musicians playing Athenian and Ionian kantades, or love songs, drifted across the roof garden and into the night.
