The fashion event held last week, showcased rich collection of African wears that’ll suit any occasions during the Christmas season and beyond.
At the show titled ‘Style Noir’, models clad in beautifully designed African fabrics cat-walked to the admiration of guests, bringing alive the entire gallery that houses diverse stunning arts and crafts collected over the years.
One interesting thing about the wears is that they were mostly made with the interest of customers at heart. Simple but elegant one may say!
Over the years, Quintessence has focused on showcasing talent of local artists, artisans, musicians and fashion designers while paying attention to promoting local content as well as creating enabling environment for cultivating local craftsmanship and creativity.
With more visibility and space to accommodate its vast collection of stunning arts and crafts by artists and, gorgeous clothing and accessories to satisfy its teaming customers, Quintessence maintains its position as one of the world’s leading luxury department stores for African arts and crafts.
While a selection of African music boomed from the sound system positioned at strategic points, guests savoured the fashion display by not more than seven elegant models clad in the beautifully designed wears. The wears were made from Aso oke, Adire and other materials sourced locally. In addition to considering the comfort of customers while making the wears, Quintessence’s annual fashion show is organised to draw attention to how much the country stands to gain when people patronise made in African fabrics. The materials sourced locally are also economical since the organisers wouldn’t need to bother about cost of importation, besides, the materials are better for our climate.
Dora Uju who manages the Arts and Crafts section of the Gallery, stated that, the essence of ‘Style Noir’, was to portray diverse Africa inspired styles available in the country, and to gather people together as Christmas season approaches, to showcase the beauty of African wears which falls within the mission of the cultural hub. “This is our second annual fashion show through which we showcase to the world, the culture and traditions of Nigeria and Africa as a whole. “We are showing our beautiful styles with African fabrics- Adire, Aso Oke, Ankara, and batik in different styles. This is because over the years, we’ve seen that our tradition is going down because of modernisation- this generation seems to only know about foreign wears. So, with local fabrics, Quintessence makes contemporary clothing to satisfy both gender and all ages so as to keep promoting our culture”, she stated.
“At Quintessence, we are trained to handle textiles so, we source our fabrics through our local artists from Oshogbo, Ikorodu, etc., and we create our styles to consider all ages. The idea of making the fabrics to contemporaries is to make the youth fall in love with the wears. You can see the blouses, shirts, jump suits, corporate wears, etc. “Also, the fabrics; adire, aso oke, batik, etc, which were dominant materials used to make the wears, are more conducive for our environment more than any imported garments, so I encourage us to get them”, Uju explained.
Clearly with the show, Quintessence advocates for African arts and crafts not only because they’re elegant but for economic reasons. Considering how cute and sassy the wears showcased are, it’s high time Nigerians made it a point of duty to patronise local textiles and designs which go a long way in creating job opportunities and boosting the economy.
