It would be hard to describe Tinuade Soile’s Adey Soile without talking about their business strategy. Just two years old, Adey Soile is easily one of Nigeria’s most accessible brands, with a functional (you won’t believe how rare this is) digital presence and physical concessions with Zazaii, Grey Velvet. With the business all sorted out, the only true question we need to ask about Adey Soile is its creative end.
Adey Soile just released editorial images for their new collection tagged ‘Transcendent.’, This is a bit of a misleading title. Not to take for granted the phenomenal cuts and tailoring that defined the brand’s first collection ‘The Adey Woman’ and recurring in this collection, but that’s as far as it goes, excellence wise.
The entire collection is a cache of formal wear tropes; crop tops, the occasional jump suits, pencil skirts. Soile even throws in peplums, flouncy gypsy collars and Peter Pan collars, just a marginal update to the brand’s debut collection. They even favor the same heavy cotton, lace paneling and bridal satin used in the label’s first collection.
There Is nothing new or original, let alone transcendental, which is a shame considering the success of the brand’s debut collection and the critical success it gained, this would have been the perfect time for Soile to expand her repetroire, show us what she is truly capable of while earning that creative director/designer title.
Even if we put aside lack of any design wise and the replication of staid silhouettes and designs, there is also the fact that the new collection can practically only dress one kind of woman. There is no versatility, nothing that makes it accessible to several demographics, and that is just as bad, rehashing several variations of one dress.
