As part of Kumasi Fashion Week, sponsor Da Viva chose to collaborate with a number of emerging designers slated to present at the showcase. It was a brilliant idea as the print wax maker gets to promote its new designs to a slew of spectators while the young designers get a huge load taken off their shoulders (fabric costs can rise to several hundred Cedis and is a great hindrance to many designers creating collections as extensive as their imaginations.)
Design label K4 Kloding 4 Da Viva is one of the designers chosen and the menswear designer showed a collection rife with traditional African menswear silhouettes reworked in ankara style prints. The designer tries to update the aesthetic by adding sheer panels, a quick trick that has been heavily abused recently by designers,- established and emerging- as a way to edge up a bland look. Repeated over and over through the collection, it quickly loses its novelty.
You get glimpses of what K4 Kloding 4 Da Viva might be capable of from his women’s wear pieces, the tailoring is sharper and he takes more risks, like off shoulder dresses with asymmetric skirts and blouson sleeves on dress shirts. It is somewhat infuriating to see the label so close to nailing this but not quite reaching. It is all so underwhelming, and we’re tired of being underwhelmed.
Photo Credit: Chasquido Studios.
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