Gabi Asfour

Gabi Asfour, also known as Gabriel Asfour, is a Lebanese-born fashion designer based in New York and a founding member of the collective that became threeASFOUR. His career developed inside the experimental downtown New York fashion scene, where collaborative authorship, unconventional construction and cross-cultural references became central to As Four and its later three-person continuation. The collective became known for sculptural garments, circular geometry, body-conscious construction and work that crosses fashion, technology and exhibition practice.

Before As Four became established, Asfour worked with Kate Spade on an early apparel line connected to a Japanese partner. He recalled developing T-shirts, wrap skirts, polo shirts, coats and related basics directly with Spade. United States activity ended in 2001 while clothing continued in Asia. Kate and Andy Spade later invited As Four to make a limited-edition apparel capsule, released through selected Kate Spade boutiques in 2005.

Asfour continued with threeASFOUR after the collective’s 2005 reconfiguration, working with Adi Gil and Angela Donhauser. Their work has entered museum collections and has explored digital fabrication, 3D printing, sacred geometry and collaborative making. His Kate Spade contribution is a smaller part of that career, but it documents an important early attempt to move the accessories brand into clothing before its later full ready-to-wear launch.

Asfour’s practice is built around geometry and the body. Circular cuts, spirals, interlocking panels and continuous surfaces turn garments into structures that can wrap, rotate or move across the figure. Construction is often visible as an idea, with pattern-cutting and material behaviour driving silhouette.

Collaboration is fundamental to his work. In As Four and threeASFOUR, design emerges through exchange between distinct cultural backgrounds and technical specialisms. The group has used hand craft, engineered textiles, digital fabrication and 3D printing to explore how clothing can sit between garment, object and spatial form.

His early Kate Spade clothing work used a quieter vocabulary. T-shirts, wrap skirts, polos and coats drew on the utilitarian directness of the handbag brand, showing Asfour’s ability to adapt his design intelligence to a practical commercial brief while preserving attention to proportion and use.