Behind the colorful, detailed menswear of London brand Dent de Man are the stories of designer Alexis Temomanin. We're excited to be carrying exclusive-to-Nordstrom styles from Dent de Man in Pop-In@Nordstrom de Soleil-our sun/swim shop curated by Olivia Kim-and spoke to Temomanin about his formative Ivory Coast childhood, entrée into the fashion world and being haunted by blue patterns.

Nordstrom blogs: Your patterns come from Indonesia, you're from the Ivory Coast and your home base is London. How do those places come together in your designs?

I'm Ivorian-born and also British: I've been living here for 20 years. The idea was always, when I moved here, to try to express myself and try to fit into the society while keeping my Ivorian values: solidarity, sharing, happiness, loud music, all that.

Indonesian prints are worn in Africa, but are not of African descent. People get it confused. Most people, when they say African prints, when you look closely, they're Indonesian prints. I've been obsessed from a young age. At the age of 5 back in Africa, I had my mom abandon me. I remember the day she left me. I didn't have any pictures or anything to remind me of her or the love I was missing, the affection I was missing. I started looking for the exact print that she was wearing. I learned about that type of print and where it came from. I tried to decode it and use it as healing for my pain. I eventually decided to make a suit from that kind of pattern, a classic suit that is very European-and I love all those pretty gentlemen styles-and that's how I began in fashion.

I knew some of that story, with your mom abandoning you. I'm so sorry that happened to you. That's heartbreaking.

Thank you, thank you.

Were you really searching for fabrics as a young boy?

Yes, that one fabric. She told me to follow her, that we were going somewhere and that we were visiting someone so we had to leave our town. It was a trip to the capital of the Ivory Coast, Abidjan. And then she said, "Wait for me here. I'm going to get something and then I'll come back and get you." And she never came. When I realized she wouldn't come back-I was 7, 8 years old-and the only thing in my mind was that print. Nobody could tell me where she was, nobody in my family. I needed something really true to remind me of my mom. Unfortunately I never found it. I think if I did see it, I would recognize it. But I don't know anymore.

Do you remember the color?

It's blue. I'm always using blue prints. A lot of turquoise. Really dramatic motifs. That's why when you look at my collections, there's always one blue thing that really stands out.

That color is haunting you.

When you're on a journey, it's hard to just give up. To be honest with you, I didn't create the brand from a commercial place. I made the suit for myself, to heal my pain and forget the past. I got to the point when I got to London where I said, "You are not a child anymore, and those memories are to be erased." I wore that suit I made by mistake-or maybe it was my good fortune, actually-to a fashion party, and people thought it was Gucci or Rick Owens. I was like, "No, no, no, I made it." I made connections at that party that started my career. I had no training.

Do you know why Indonesian patterns are so popular in Ivory Coast and Africa?

From what I read, and also because I work with VISCO, the leading company in the world of that cloth, it's because in the 1800s, Indonesian prints were really popular in Europe. In England, France, Denmark: everyone was wearing them. After the Second World War, the Indian market became open to Europeans. So we got fabrics in Africa that were much more fine, shiny, beautiful, brought by the Dutch. And Africans really accepted it, I think because the patterns are colorful and warm.

I've been to Bali in Indonesia, I went there to try to figure out why I was drawn to this culture that I barely even know. I found it's warm. People live like in Africa. I think it's more or less the same. We have the same kind of values. I tell people in Africa that these are Indonesian prints, and they're fighting, arguing with me, saying they can't believe they're not African. Because that's what we got used to, that's what we know, what our mom and pop were wearing. It's a big surprise to many people.

I had people on my website saying, African people saying, "How can you reject your culture?" I did not reject my culture. The reality is those prints are Indonesian. African print is more color-blocked. Or if you go to the north coast of Ivory Coast, you can see motifs. But the motifs are all about human drawing, or animals, or the lifestyle, just African lifestyle. Indonesian cloths are much more symbols, spirituality and mysticism. There's a similarity in our rituals. When I was there I saw a funeral and it shocked me: there was a procession of people taking coffee to the cemetery. And it shocked me because it's the same thing you see in Africa. People with the coffee, and they're crying.

Are there stories to the shirts we bought from you?

The blue one with the circles: I call it What Goes Around Comes Around. At one point in my life I was trapped. I was trapped back in Africa. I had a dream when I was there while I was watching TV-which was a luxury for me since I grew up very poor-that I really wanted to leave there and go to Europe or America or somewhere where life would be different, where life would be less difficult for me. To have the opportunity to dream. I felt like I was trapped there. So I call this What Goes Around Comes Around, because here I am. I think I found that print when I was 17. It's one of those prints where...yes, I...yes, I...sorry. [Cries]

Did you ever want to design prints yourself?

I do develop my own prints. I like to draw really dramatic and scary monsters. I come from a really secluded place in Ivory Coast, where we're animists. We don't believe in God. So I grew up with a lot of masks around me, for rituals, that kind of thing. So I'm using them now, making them more beautiful, more futuristic. My memory is so dark of them, but they're in my head. So how do I get them out of my head? In a way, so people can look at them and not be scared of them, but see something they haven't seen before. But not too harsh to watch. As it was harsh for me to watch.

In what situations would you see masks in your childhood?

We adored masks. Is adored the word? We worshipped the masks. That was our version of God. People really believe in those masks. For a child to see masks is very scary. And to see the ritual, it's very scary. As a child, I didn't have a choice but to see the masks and also to do those rituals as well. So yeah, I'm marked. I'm marked by those masks. The only way for me to look at them now is to make them not scary, the way they were scary to me. Like the print I'm using for your blue shirt: it's bright colors, but the story is dark. Everything I do is bright, it's uplifting, trust me. But because I want to be positive and nice. I want to see beauty around me. That's what I believe in.

-Andrew Matson