Nigerian high street design label, Xclamations has been quiet these past few months, most likely because of the past year spent promoting L.A.X Designs, their mass market line targeted at a much younger crowd. Now that the brand is back to promoting its main line, they have partnered with tv presenter and media personality, Mimi Onalaja, who has become very popular over the last year, hoping to parlay some of her brand into sales. We are usually averse to celebrities plugging design labels, but this partnership we think makes sense, as the brand seems primarily geared towards fuller figured women.
Now let’s talk clothes. Aesthetically, the collection has a lot of similarities to the recently released Design For Love Spring 16 collection with its fabric choices (lace inserts in African inspired print wax). What separates this collection from Design for Love however is the silhouette choices. Favouring a more varied palette of prints, Xclamations works around the season’s trends (culottes, extensive draping, geometric colour blocking,) modifying the silhouettes and trends to work for plus size women. The print culottes with contrasts pleats are a thing of beauty, as are the cowl neck cocktail dresses with satin sash detailing.
The new collection is good, and ticks all the necessary boxes. But is it Xclamations best collection? We’re not quite sure. There are a number of pedestrian cotton bib blouses that a little more tinkering could have made significantly better, and there are no staples in the collection that can work for more than one occasion. For a high street brand, that simply is unacceptable.
Brand: Xclamations!
Website: www.xclamations.net
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xclamations
Facebook: Xclamations-By-Tomi-Rotimi
Model: Omowunmi ‘Mimi’ Onalaja | @mimionalaja
Photography: Photonimi | @photonimi
Make Up: Lash Envy | @lashenvy.ng
Styling: Abisayo | @abbyrian
