Our Dark Envy: Styling April Love

MAY 2013VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3

Styling April LoveOur Dark Envy:

contentsEditorial

Your Dark Envy: “Love April”

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An “African Queen” Look to die for! 7

The Hidden Secrets of “I Do” 9

Wicked Obsession with Black Coffee 5

Ditching Western Cliché with a Splash of African-Themed Caps 4

Break Out the Ankara tees 6

Fire Up Your Style and Passion, Maki Oh! 10Don’t miss Africa’s Summer Style Rage 11

Raw from Ghana: Be an Asofo Prints Soldier 15

The Amazing Story of Capulana 13

Flatter your Curves like ‘Mad Men’ 12

How to Arouse Random Awesomeness 14

A Tale of Stylishly Conscious Bags 16Get the African Royalty Looks without the Fuss! 17

Unleash Your Wild Soul! 20

Break Hearts and Necks with Bags Made-To-Fit 18Brighten Your Summer With Hesey Bags! 19

To our beloved readers,

Our lives move in fast forward. This is no secret. It’s hard to believe our third issue is already out and being read by African fashion lovers and newcomers to the game alike. Aside from the different lives we live, the team at gèlè is

dedicated to sharing the good news of the microcosm of both high-end and obtainable African fashion, reflecting our love for Mother Africa and the resources she constantly pours out for us to benefit and make good with. Knowing that our art and dedication to this magazine is proving fruitful is enough to express thanks to supporters everywhere.

The cover photo is from the young label Love April, who has just released their new spring/summer 2013 collection, influenced by the collision of masculine and feminine counterparts.

As for what’s inside, you will find caps that throw traditional Western looks out the window, a love for Black Coffee, secrets of “I Do,” some Mad Men inspiration, and a whole section called ‘Online Finds,’ dedi-cated to featured pieces to be bought, well, online.

Bringing you the best of African fashion, as always, is our mission statement. No matter what obstacles we may face as a magazine, the end goal is always you, the reader. We make sure your product is delivered.

Stay tuned and turn the page. We promise you won’t be disappointed!

Welina FarahEditor-in-Chief

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...the joy of African Fashion

Funfere Koroye, the brains behind Fusion Kelvar, re-cently joined forces with La-gos-based artisans to create

a 5-panel hat in 3 different prints. They are not available online to buy quite yet, but if you’d like to help fund the project, it’s on Indiegogo.

“Often I think to myself about morphing the Nigerian aesthetic and all that comes to mind is the practical tribal representations as opposed to the uncomfortable western ideals that have turned into clichés. Sometime last year, my associates and I spoke about cre-ating proper hand crafted goods with engineered African wax prints that wouldn’t be a cliché piece of clothing. We settled on a five panel, as some know is tough to make, which is why it took nearly a year to realize. After working closely with a skilled Nigerian menswear tailor here in Lagos, it was realized gloriously in 2 weeks. We plan to keep pushing quality dry goods that stem from innovation, function and culture. This project is now on Indiegogo, for anyone willing to share and donate to the cause. This is just the start of my better ideas to come, supporting this project will lay down a foundation for a stronger republic.”

via OneNigerianBoy

Ditching Western Cliché with a Splash of African-Themed Caps

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The first night of South Africa’s summer Fashion Week made me want to ditch the rest of the shows! After seeing Black Coffee’s summer 2013 collection, I’m afraid I’ll com-pare the other designers merciless-ly to the perfection that was Black Coffee's collection.

A Wicked Obsession with Back Coffee:

Spring/Summer 2013 Collection Coverage

Images are courtesy of Ivan Naude from ‘Planet Ivan’

Titled ‘Imprint,’ this line was made up of form fitting mesh garments, matched with handmade patterns created through applique (a nee-dlework technique where pieces of fabric, embroidery, or other mate-rials are sewn onto another piece of fabric to create designs, patterns or pictures).

It was a work of art. A dance team opened the show and dropped the yellow petals you see 1on the run-way.

via teeteeiswithme

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Goldman Supply Co. is a casual tee shirt brand based in Lagos, Nigeria. All of the products are

sourced and supplied locally, giving way to African print on cotton tees and tanks. Their debut spring/sum-mer 2012 collection features tanks, shorts sleeve shirts, and 3/4 sleeve baseball tees. All tees have finished waxed fabric (also known as Anka-ra) pockets and fold-up patches.

Check them out on Facebook for more information.

via OneNigerianBoy

Breaking Out the Ankara tees


An “African Queen” look to die for!

Things like medieval leather sword belts, Java prints, Congolese mask designs, and furry pom-poms all represent Fahy’s cultural experienc-es from his travels and living in Zim-babwe, in some way or the other.

via Shadders

Influenced by the 1951 classic “The African Queen” starring Katherine Hepburn, Liam Fahy, Zimbabwean designer of shoes,

has released his spring/summer 2013 collection entitled ‘Congo’ after the film location. Fahy adds a feminine touch to a masculine loaf-er by giving it a bit of heel and uses a mix of materials for the collection, all to make the perfect shoe assort-ment.

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As a new label, ‘Love April’ is really showing off with the level of creativity going into each piece. It is

a very flexible brand, blending an-tique with modern, masculine with feminine, telling a unique story with each piece.

“This season we followed our natural instinct and creatively pro-duced bold tribal prints. Our muse was that of historically illustrating African womanhood. Our motive was to not only harness the Love April woman’s natural female form through dramatic tribal prints, but to also uniquely contemporize the look and feel of each piece. Inspired by the world history generations of women and androgyny artworks, the Love April’s collection plays on the mixture of masculinity and femininity. Our exaggerated seam-lines emphasize our cling to modern culture. Our true, bare, and chic necklines keep us in the realm of ancients. Our abstracted textured prints will ultimately immortalize the classic style and feel of a wom-an.” - Nina Barkers-Woode, CEO and creative designer

via Style Cravings

Shop the Look

Your Dark Envy: “Love April”


In the Swahili language, furaha means ‘happy.’ Socially conscious East African brand Furaha was created in 2010 and uses the

skills of local artisans to create their works of art.

The brand is best known for their “Kikapu,” a traditional hand woven raffia palm basket covered in eclec-tic African prints and textiles. The baskets are hand-woven by women in rural villages in central Uganda,

Break Hearts and Necks with Bags Made-To-Fitreceiving all their income from the production of the bags. Given the circumstances, Furaha started an initiative called “Weave Out Pov-erty” to promote basket weaving, a common and traditional skill, as a home-based industry. The ultimate goal is to provide opportunities to generate income as well as sustain-able employment for the weavers. These entrepreneurs eventually go on to create their own small busi-nesses, secure loans allowing them

to expand their workshops, and weave a proud future.

Bags can be bought here.

Via CiaAfrique

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The Hidden Secrets of “I Do”


Love, Tims” is a line of wed-ding gowns by Nigerian wed-ding company “I Do Wed-dings”. The founder, Timi

Ejiwunmi, tells us the story behind the company: “‘I Do Weddings’ is a weddings solution company. The name speaks, one says ‘I Do’ after they exchange vows and we literal-ly do weddings as a business. The company started off primarily with wedding planning (which we still do) and has now expanded to other services including a new bridal line, which we’re extremely excited about.”

The line is called “Love, Tims” be-cause each dress is a labor of love. As a love letter to each bride, each dress is signed off with ‘Love by Tims’, the designer’s nickname.

The line also includes bridal acces-sories, like veils, bridal sashes/belts, and other wedding necessities. ‘Love, Tims’ also takes into con-sideration their home country of Nigeria and the tradition for brides by offering boleros and cap/illusion sleeves.

“[Love, Tims] is for the bride who has a taste for finer things,” says the website. “[The bride who] wants to look elegant but doesn’t want to have to fly abroad or break the bank. There is no reason why beautiful wedding dresses cannot be pur-chased in Nigeria and so we bring in a fresh injection of glamour, ele-gance, class and timeless beauty.”

The dresses are not yet available online, but Ejiwunmi tells us they are on their way.

via BellaNaija

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Nigerian fashion label Maki Oh is taking her individu-ality and putting it all over fashion in her fall/winter

2013 collection.

Featured in Vogue Magazine and Vogue’s Style.com, this label has

Fire Up Your Style and Passion, Maki Oh!captured attention from all over the world with its conversational piec-es, technical structures and detailed construction.

The label’s new collection, inspired by hair threading, uses adire ma-terial to create exquisite pieces in white, lilac, and blue tones. The pieces have uneven hems, a couple of jackets to appeal to southern hemisphere habitants in their fall season, and signature sheer detail, typical of Maki Oh designs.

via LadyBrille


With sum-mer right around the corner,

the African online store Sapellé has reloaded their lookbook with warm dresses and light, airy outfits to fit the mood of the season.

via CiaAfrique

Don’t miss Africa’s Summer Style Rage

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With the taste of the words ‘classical movie’ on our lips, we are reminded of

the TV show “Mad Men” and all the ‘modernized women’ we see. This feel comes with Tai Adeboyeku’s autumn/winter 2013 collection. Adeboyeku has worked with some big names like Derek Lam, Donna Karan, and Catherine Malandrino. Each piece is its own timeless classic with a design tapered and created in order to flatter the curves on a woman. Fringe, backless dresses, trimmings, monochrome sections, and lemon, bright pink, and grey frequent the collection.

via BellaNaija

Flatter your Curves like ‘Mad Men’


Mozambican designer Taibo Bacar has just released his latest au-tumn/winter 2013 look-

book. It features amazing pieces mostly made with a specific African print fabric called "Capulana.”

If interesting in finding out more about Taibo Bacar, visit his website.

via CiaAfrique

The Amazing Story of Capulana

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Tzar (pronounced ‘zar’) is a Nigerian brand specialized in shirts.

Created from the love of prints and galvanized by the ethos of the ‘metrosexual man,’ this brand gives us their debut collection entitled, ‘Random Awesome.’

How to Arouse Random Awesomeness

With loud and bright blends of colors, bold prints, and the unisex feel, these tee shirts are sure to be successful. Just think of all the wardrobe possibilities available!

via Uberchicmichi


A. Sauvage, a British/Ghanaian designer, has dropped his spring/summer 2013 line, featuring signa-ture camouflage prints and Asafo

(dancing) prints. A. Sauvage has established its visual by working Ghanaian heritage with British simplicity. The collection is available online with some up for pre-order.

Raw from Ghana: Be an Asofo Prints Soldiervia OneNigerianBoy

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Bineta Sanor, an emerging Senegalese-French ethical fashion brand, has released their new spring/summer

2013 collection. The brand has changed their name from Diablo-tine, so if you’re looking to buy anything from their new line, be mindful of the name change.

The following is pulled from their website:“Fashion should be used for some-thing. To meet the standards of this statement, Bineta Samor has opted to purchase all their fabrics in Africa- mainly Senegal- in order to partake in the development of small local businesses.”

via CiaAfrique

A Tale of Stylishly Conscious Bags


Caven + Etomi, a brand started by three best friends, has rolled out their debut collection for

the masses: KINGDOM IDIA luxu-ry tee shirts. Pulling directly from their website, the ladies are “…inspired by their heritage, culture, and historical artifacts. The idea behind the shirts is one of accessi-ble luxury, combining fashion and function …each shirt holds a piece of African history in the form of a historical artifact and in it is woven a story that is long forgotten; with meanings tied in ritualistic and social importance and of course, status. This powerful symbolism not only shares a piece of history with its wearers, but creates an aura of African royalty.”

Caven + Etomi had another photo shoot for their lookbook in Lagos, Nigeria. The IDIA tee-shirt collec-tion is the first from the label. It taps into Benin and Edo origins, all the while incorporating contemporary aesthetics like Givenchy.

via OneNigerianBoy

Get the African Royalty Looks without the Fuss!

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Brighten Your Summer With Hesey Bags!

Hesey Designs, created in July 2012 by Eseoghene Odiete, is a Nigerian brand creating bags for women with West African infused prints.

Following a number of success stories and experiences on the fashion scene (featuring in Lagos Style Week, 2011 and working with fashion platforms like dealdey.com and as well as offline magazines like Business Day Newspaper, Guardian Life Magazine),

After all of the success stories, experiences on the runway (including Lagos Style Week 2011), and published articles (featured on dealdey.com, Business Day Newspaper, and Guardian Life Magazine), Hesey Designs is currently focused on growing their accessory line, which includes shoes, bags, and slippers.

And of course, all designs are inspired by the African culture.

Catch a flash sale on Facebook or drop them a line to inquire about making a purchase.

Via Uberchicmichi


You may think to yourself, “Uh huh, that’s nice, good to know,” when you hear a brand has donated to a

cause. But what do you think when a brand allows you to choose where the money will go?

wEnter Wild Soul sunglasses. “Wild Soul was created on the premise that there are causes greater than our own that can and must be sup-ported. We are dedicated to giving supporters of Wild Soul a platform to help the causes that are close to their heart. That is why when you buy a pair of Wild Soul Sunglasses, a portion of your purchase goes to a charity of your choice, contributing to health, societal and environ-mental initiatives. We choose to be part of something bigger; creating a product that allows anyone to be part of something bigger too.”

Created in November 2012, Wild Soul aimed at helping customers ‘fulfil their souls’ by allowing them to choose where their money goes, all while feeding their ‘wild’ side with products called Owl, Lion, Ele-phant, and Rhino.

If interested, these sunnies can be purchased through their Young Republic page.

Via UberChicmichi

Get Your Wild Soul On!

The production teamgèlèSpecial thanks

Design and layout

David Jérémy Delonnay

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Editor-in-Chief

Welina R. Farah

Director

Bamidele Omotosho

We here at gèlè would like to thank the following blogs for their determination, hard work, and dedication to African fashion. Without them, we would not be here. Thank you.

OneNigerianBoyCIAAfriqueBellaNaijaLadybrille Magazine

COVER PHOTO CREDIT: LOVE-APRIL

http://www.onenigerianboy.com/

CIAAfrique

BellaNaija

Ladybrille Magazine

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Our Dark Envy: Styling April Love