The 39 -year -old man shot and killed during a weekend “No Kings” protest in Salt Lake City was a successful fashion designer and former “Project Runway” cabinet that dedicated his life to celebrating artists from the Pacific Islands.
Arthur Folasa AH Loo was killed when a man who was supposed to be part of a peace team for the protest shot a person who waved a gun in demonstrators, accidentally striking AH Loo. AH Loo died later in the hospital, the authorities said.
Detectives do not yet know why the alleged Rifleman brought out a weapon or ran from the peace enforcement officers, but they accused him of murder and accused him of creating the dangerous situation that led to the death of AH Loo, said Salt Lake Police Chief Brian Redd on a Sunday press conference.
AH Loo leaves his wife and two young children behind, according to a GoFundme for his family who picked up more than $ 100,000 in 48 hours.
The “autodidactic” fashion designer born in Samoa, known to many as AFA, devoted his life to “the good things for his neighbors and community,” said Rep. Verona Mauga.
Mauga was a few blocks from where AH Loo was shot on the “No Kings Protest”. She said she just had a feeling that something was wrong when she saw the crowd running.
No matter how tragic his death is, she said, Ah Loo would have been proud that his last moments were spent on fighting for what he believed in.
“If AFA would go in a different way than natural causes, it would stand up for marginalized and vulnerable communities and ensure that people had a voice,” Mauga told the Associated Press on Monday.
Although he was typically openly not political, AH Loo had a talent for connecting ‘culture and diversity and services’ and to bring people together, said Mauga.
Benjamin Powell, an innovator of the Fiji’s hair salon, was co-founder of Pacific with AH Loo shortly after they met four years ago. The organization elevates artists from the Pacific islands.
The two artists had a rare creative synergy, Powell said. AH Loo’s lively work subtly weaves the traditional Pacific Island clothing with modern silhouettes and design. He used flowers native to Samoa as motifs, and often took the traditional Pacific Islander art on the name Tapa, a canvas traditionally made of tree bark, in the clothing he made.
Powell admired the meticulous attention to detail that made the work of AH Loo distinctive.
“You would immediately know that it was an AH Loo design,” said Powell.
AH Loo and Powell worked on a coming fashion show in August when he died. Powell said, “The show will continue” and honor AH Loo’s non -repellent vision for his community.
The AH Loo portfolio has earned countless awards over the years. In 2017, he was a participant on Bravo’s ‘Project Runway’, a reality TV show where fashion designers are fighting for famous jury members to create catwalk cooks on tight deadlines.
AH Loo recently designed a piece of clothing for the Disney Channel animation film Moana 2, Hawaiian actor Auliʻi Cravalho.
Cravalho wore the outfit, which combined the traditional and modern aesthetics from its culture, to the red carpet premiere of the film in Hawaii last November.
“This was the first time that I was so active in designing a custom look, and Afa surpassed what I had imagined,” Cravalho told the magazine at the time.
But not all his work was controversial, said Mauga.
AH Loo would do his time and resources volunteering to adjust clothing for people who needed help, often people refuse to let him compensate for his work, Mauga said. Sometimes AH Loo playfully criticized the outfits that the newly chosen Democratic representative wore on the campaign track and invited her to his studio so that he could make her a new set of blazers. He also made her dresses for events, sometimes only a few hours of notice period.
“Afa was so much of the community,” she said.
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