Out of Africa : Naj Aly creates fashions that reflect the colorful culture of the continent from which come the fabrics.

Naj Aly steps lightly into the elegant library of the Ritz-Carlton in Dana Point, where she has come to indulge in her favorite ritual of afternoon tea.

“This reminds me of Paris,” she says in her French accent, as a waiter delivers a plate of canapes to her table.

Although Aly looks right at home sipping tea at the Ritz, she is also comfortable sleeping on the floor of a hut in an African village. Aly is a link between continents, a kind of goodwill ambassador who seeks to unite people through an unusual medium: fashion.

“Through my clothes I try to bring the cultures together,” Aly says.

Aly creates fashions from fabrics she designs and manufactures in Africa. She sells the garments in America and Europe under her company name, “Dreams Out of Africa.”

A native of Ethiopia, a resident of Paris and a frequent visitor to Orange County--she has a factory in Santa Ana and sells her clothes to Nordstrom--Aly moves easily from culture to culture.

“I have friends everywhere,” she says.

Her latest collection features her drawings on fabric that are hand-painted by African villagers.

“I go into the villages, and I try to express the culture on a fabric and bring it to the American public,” she says. “I don’t want to just sell clothes, I want people to know about where the garment is from. I want them to discover the people, the countries, the culture.”

Her T-shirts, for instance, come adorned with drawings of people and things she sees in the villages: the animals, masks, huts, palm trees and villagers. They come in black and white or bright colors like orange and raspberry--the warm tones of her native land.

“In Africa, everything is colorful. The people are warm. They like bright oranges and reds,” Aly says.

“If you put on orange or white or red it makes you happy because those colors are warm. The more colors you have in life, the more life is colorful.”

Aly spends months traveling from village to village in West Africa, buying fabric made from locally grown cotton and recording village life through her drawings.

“I want to learn about their culture. I do everything they do. I eat with them, I sleep on the floor with all the mosquitoes eating me. I listen to the older, wiser people like the village chief tell stories. What I hear from them I put in my clothes. It’s like writing a book through clothes.”

One village elder told her how the young men needed courage to go into the forest to hunt. She put the hunter on a T-shirt.

“They don’t kill animals to kill, but they hunt to eat. I try to put that image on a T-shirt,” she says.

In addition to one-of-a-kind hand-painted clothes, she makes patterns for cotton fabric to be produced by African fabric companies and cut into her designs.

Aly’s latest collection features dyed denim shorts, pants, jackets and overalls and other separates. Some garments are hand-painted with stripes, stars and flowers. One denim jacket comes in fuchsia with a blue starburst pattern on the back.

There are color-blocked shorts and jeans made from patches of blue, brown, purple, fuchsia and red denim. One pair of fuchsia jeans has purple pockets; a pair of overalls come in a patchwork of red, blue and pink denim.

“Everywhere I go I see people wearing jeans, but normal blue jeans--there’s no creativity. So I decided to try something with jeans. I bought different-colored denim and painted it.”

Aly learned to design clothing from her mother, who would dress her in original creations using the best materials. She began her formal design career making classical haute couture before starting the free-spirited “Dreams Out of Africa” line two years ago.

“I decided to take care of my artistic side,” she says. “In 1920 through 1960 all of the creativity in fashion was done. Now we need to work on fabrics. We can express ourselves more in painting fabrics.”

Nordstrom was one of her first clients and has already expressed interest in the new line. Within a year she also hopes to open her own boutique in Orange County.

Aly’s T-shirts sell for $40, a patchwork denim jacket for $150 and dresses and jumpsuits for $80 to $150. The garments are cut, sewn and packaged in the Santa Ana factory.

“I have a love of Africa,” Aly says. “The country is rich, the people are very innocent. They are not tourist attractions or cannibals. They trust you, believe in you. They believe in nature. They’re very special people, and my heart goes out to them. I want others to know them better.”