Orange Culture presents it’s AW16 look book, and compared to the label’s safe Spring 15 ad campaign for it’s Pieces of Her collection, this one is likely to draw many hair raising opinions.
Oke-Lawal aims for a darker, almost dystopian theme, shedding the relative safeness of a brightly lit studio for South African Veldt lands. The models are uncoiffed, their dark skin glistening against the red sand and unforgiving sun as they drape the label’s AW16 pieces over their bodies.
The styling is also very dystopian, the models wear colour coordinated leotards over their boots and cover their upper legs, which shows a very unsettling kind of androgyny. We will say this for the new ad-campaign. It demands to be looked at and forces you to form an opinion. Many people will hate it, because it is so far away from the image of Orange Culture they have all become accustomed to. But, maybe that is the point that Bayo Oke-Lawal is trying to make. The label has created two more lines to cater to new clientele, it is changing, evolving.
Maybe it’s time people realised that.
Photo Credits:
Photography: Travys Owen
Art direction, styling & casting: Gabrielle Kannemeyer
Models: Kwen, Kevwe, Samuel and Ronald from Twenty and Red Model Management.