Stephanie Bruce Qlothing is one of the brands that partnered with Kumasi Fashion Week sponsor, premium fabric manufacturer, Da Viva for their new capsule collection. And they were one of the better brands to do it.
Their showcase (like many at KFW16) showed menswear and womenswear pieces, predominantly leaning towards womenswear. Understandably, the womenswear pieces shown by the label’s design team were more adventurous. Done entirely in shades of pink, blue, black and white, Stephanie Bruce is one of the labels to put Da Viva’s prints to great use.
The label’s obvious strengths are in creating separates; mixing fabrics and functional zip closures to create a menswear tunic that should already be hanging in a retail store somewhere. This edginess is more prominent in the women’s wear pieces. Bruce debuts a fish tail dress with plunging neckline and a lace-up bodice embellished with lace panels, a cape and pencil skirt combo that takes the idea of a sexy nun and drapes her in Ankara complete with elbow length fishnet gloves and a leather skirt hem.
It goes a little overboard when Stephanie Bruce sends a padded cape trench with leather panels paired with cropped pleather shorts held up by suspenders out, cr0ssing the line from taking inspiration to transplating, but that is quickly forgotten as the tail of the showcase softens into sky blue A-line skirts.
Straddling the line between sensual and vulgar, Stephanie Bruce Qlothing largely gets away with, until she doesn’t. But this is a label we would like to see, when it is done with the shock and awe stage many emerging designers get mired in.
