Arthur “Afa” Folasa Ah Loo
Instagram photo
UTAH (NZ Herald/Pacnews) — A prominent Samoan fashion designer who was shot at a protest against President Donald Trump in Utah’s capital has died.
Salt Lake City Police Department said Arthur “Afa” Folasa Ah Loo, 39, was fatally shot at the Salt Lake City “No Kings” protest, after a 24-year-old man brandished an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle.
The police statement posted on X said detectives believe Ah Lo was an “innocent bystander.”
It added that the man carrying the AR-15-style rifle, identified as Arturo Gamboa, had been arrested and jailed on a charge of murder.
“Detectives allege he raised an AR-15-style rifle and ran toward the crowd, prompting a person to fire three rounds, one of which tragically struck Ah Loo,” Salt Lake City Police Department said.
The charges were preliminary and would need to be confirmed by prosecutors.
Samoan-born and raised, Ah Loo lived and worked in Utah with his wife Laura and their two children.
Speaking at a press conference, Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd said Gamboa did not fire his weapon.
The man who shot at Gamboa was wearing a high-visibility vest and was apparently affiliated with protest organizers. He had not been charged and was co-operating with police.
Gamboa had no criminal history, according to Redd, who said that investigators were still in the initial phases of probing what his possible motivations were.
The United States has been in the grip of intense political polarization, particularly since the election of President Trump last year. The shots at the protest on Saturday sent panic coursing through the crowd in Salt Lake City, and came hours after a Minnesota lawmaker was killed at her home, in an apparent politically motivated assassination.
A self-taught fashion designer, Ah Loo made a name for himself in the Pacific fashion realm through his self-titled label Afa Ah Loo.
Specializing in pageant and event wear, Ah Loo dressed many prominent Pacific figures and dignitaries during his career, including Miss World Samoa contestant Latafale Auva’a.
In 2024, he custom-made the outfit Moana actor Auliʻi Cravalho wore to the premiere of Moana 2, with Cravalho telling Vogue “Afa surpassed what I had envisioned.”
Ah Loo’s collections and fashion lines were shown in multiple fashion weeks including Fiji Fashion, Pacific Runway, LA Fashion Week and Utah Fashion Week.
He competed in Season 17 of the popular television show Project Runway. In 2018, Ah Loo represented Samoa at the Commonwealth Fashion Exchange that took place in Buckingham Palace, an experience he described as “the best moment” in his career.
Ah Loo’s work in fashion brought him to Aotearoa on multiple occasions. He showed as part of the Pacific Fusion Fashion Show in 2017 and returned in 2019 as one of two designers sponsored by the U.S. Consulate in Auckland to participate in the event.
Ah Loo was an advocate for Pacific creatives and fashion and co-founded the fashion showcase Utah Pacific Fashion. In 2024 in an interview with VoyageUtah, Ah Loo said he loved to incorporate his Samoa and Pacific Island heritage into his fashion.
“I am most proud to be Samoan and to be from the biggest ocean in the world and be able to make an impact on people’s lives, whether big or small.”
Founder of Pacific Fusion Fashion Show Nora Swann told the Herald she was “deeply saddened” by the death of her friend.
“Afa was a force to be reckoned with and, without doubt, the best Samoan fashion designer in the world,” Swann said.
“We shared a mutual respect for growing the Pacific fashion community internationally and regularly supported each other’s work. I was looking forward to seeing Afa in a few months, as our next meeting was to promote Pacific fashion globally. Afa will be missed by the Samoan and Pacific fashion communities — he was truly one in a million.”
Afa participated in two Pacific Fusion Fashion Shows in New Zealand, in 2017 and 2019, where he was also a guest speaker at our capacity-building workshops, and the U.S. Embassy in NZ sponsored Afa to take part in PFFS, Swann said.
