For a designer who has shown at an international fashion showcase as big as the Africa Fashion Week New York, it should be immediately apparent that your entire catalog of clothes is available in some iteration on the Internet and that as a designer, even if you must visit your archives and rework old ideas, two short years is way, way too early to be recycling ideas. But this is what Nkem Emegha of Ms Ray Couture (again with the couture title for a label that is obviously not couture) has done with her Spring 16 collection, a collection that looks like the extra pieces from her Spring 14 collection, debuted at Africa Fashion Week New York were given minor alterations and a truck load of chiffon.
The distinctive metallic gold fabric with geometric cuboids prints that was used as a contrast for the white fabric base of her Spring 14 collection is revisited for this collection, or a close enough fascimile that we can barely tell the difference. Several of the silhouettes are revisited and only marginally reworked. The sense of deja vu is strong with this collection, and for the life of us, we cannot comprehend why a designer would make a blunder this avoidable? Were there no other fabric choices but these two? Why would she mirror her old work when the result isn’t miles better?
This is particularly disappointing because it is obvious that Emegha’s tailoring has improved by leaps and bounds since 2013, which comes to nothing as her ideas have stayed stagnant.
Disappointing.
Photo credit for Ms Ray Couture Spring 2014 looks from Omogemura.com
