There are brands who struggle to find an aesthetic and identity that marries their personal design philosophies, western influences and often subtle nuances that references their Nigerian heritage, and there is Iconola, the Nigerian brand who sidesteps all of that by actively embracing all of the stereotypes about Nigerian fashion and running with it. The label through it’s main brand and it’s adjunct label Design For Love has refined our palettes as it regards African inspired wax prints (Ankara) and what can be done with it.
The label continues in this quest to reclaim Ankara with it’s new collection, promoted with it’s#BeBeautiful 2016 campaign. To help promote the collection, it has partnered with Nigerian celebrity presenter and long time fan of the brand Bolanle Olukanni to front the new campaign. This is a great decision considering Olukanni has heavily watched shows on the cable channel Ebony Life TV and is the host of the reality show MTN Project Fame.
The clothes however are quite underwhelming. Compared to the impressive Design for Love collection that showed the true scope of the Iconola brand’s creative reach, this collection is simply an amalgamation of this season’s lazy trends, formal crop top, off shoulder blouses/dresses, leather fringe peplum skirting, awning sleeves. It’s not even that the trends are tired, Iconola’s interpretation of these trends were particularly lazy. There was nothing that was so interestingly done that couldn’t have been gotten from a tailor or another brand.
Especially as Iconola’s chosen medium is a saturated medium, we will always expect more from them, and this time they grossly under-delivered. Also there were so pretty wonky styling choices in this campaign, that blue eye shadow look was pretty bad.
Credits
Model: Bolanle Olukanni
Creative direction: Iconola Brand | Fierce & Modish
Styling: MsModish for Fierce & Modish
Make-up: Doranne Beauty
Hairstyling: Vavavoom
Photography: Jerrie Rotimi
The photoshoot was at LaahStudios, with accesories by Brand2Glam Accessories
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