I was very honoured to to be given the opportunity by creative director Ola Shobowale to help out as a stylist assistant at Fashion4Africa on December 11, 2010 at the Africa Centre in London.
“The Fashion4Africa showcase is a fundraising initiative that was inspired by a cultural study into African tourism, which helped to identify the amazing potential within the modern African textiles industries, African fashion, culture music and arts from all states of the continent. Fifteen models from Africa take to the runway to battle for the title as the Face of Fashion4Africa”.
For starters, I have never seen so many different African nationalities in the same room. I am used to seeing mass crowds of either Ghanaian people, Sierra Leaonian people, Sudanese people, and Nigerian people at a time. But I have never actually seen a mixture. When I do go to Africa events it’s always these same nationalities and I see and maybe one or two others. I was quite pleased to see such a mixture. By job was the help head stylist Sharna Francis and her assistant stylist Grace Uchenna get the girls dressed and ready for each section of the show. The contestants strutted their stuff in three runs – cultural, day wear and evening wear some of their own garments and Africa’s finest designers like Ituen Basi, Kemkem Studio, Goldson, AnnaLuks, Asake Oge, Bot I Lam, Uchenna London and Amooti by Maureen.
Unfortunately, I was not able to see the winner being announced, I had to leave because I was leaving for Paris early in the morning. I do know that the new face of Fashion4Africa is Samira Hashi of Somalia. For the past two years, 20 year old Samira has built a pretty impressive modelling portfolio. She’s worked with worked with a number of African designers such as Zedeye. She hopes to use her talent and skill to help raise money for the Fashion4Africa charity and bring Africa out of the Dark and into the Light! A few days ago I picked up Essence magazine at WH Smith is Waterloo. I started flicking through it and funnily enough I saw Samira’s picture. I think she was modeling for a hair segment in a magazine. When I saw her I thought hey she looks really familiar! I remember seeing her at Fashion4Africa and thinking the same things as well. But I wasn’t able to put my finger on it until I started researching for this post and remember seeing her in Zedeye’s campaign images.
Samira rocking an AnnaLuks garment. I absolutely love this outfit. It is so avant-garde and structural.
Samira with runners up Sade Sanusi of Nigeria (left) Yvonne Akwetey of Ghana (right)
Contestant Lucinda Ngozi Barnes of Nigeria looked amazing in her cultural outfit topped off with a superb neckpiece by
Contestant Natalie Delatte of Cameroon looked fierce in this outfit by Uchenna London and neckpiece by Bianou. The first thing I fell in love with, was the neckpiece. So I bought it!!! That post is for another day.
All the contestants did an amazing job!!!
Congratulations to Samira and the runners up Yvonne and Sade!
I really enjoyed by time there and I am truly grateful to Ola Shobowale for giving me the opportunity to help out.
Backstage Team (Hair, Make-up, Stylists and Assistants)
SOURCE: FASHION4AFRICA & ROB SHEPPARD PHOTOGRAPHY
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