Q. What inspired you this season? 

This collection was purely influenced by my need to balance my idea of excess and moderation in fashion. With ‘sustainability’ being the focus of global fashion conversations, I found myself constantly asking what that word meant to me as a designer and for my brand. The amplified use of color to exaggerate silhouettes, the play of crystal embellishment, balanced with the repurposing of old prints from previous collections alongside the use of eco friendly fabrics and the incorporation of traditional batik techniques, not only answered my question satisfactorily but led me to tag this collection ‘Less is more is less’ . This reinstated the fact that though fashion is paired down for wearability and timelessness, it remains an expression of our times, culture, escape and fantasies.

Q. Can you give us a back story on the prints you designed?

We revisited our archives and focused on two prints. Our ‘heart-on-heart’ print designed for our Spring/Summer 2016 Collection ‘She wears her heart on his sleeve’. A collection inspired by desire, love and entanglements. And our ‘Dancing Lady’ print from our Spring/Summer 2012 collection inspired by the love for dance and celebrations as part of the Nigerian culture. These prints are represented in commanding pink, blue and green hues.The timelessness of these prints reinforce the conscious reworking of old to make new. Another exciting part of the print design process was the creation of a new texture we’ve coined as ‘Batkara’ whilst creating new prints achieved by the application of our traditional batik techniques on the local Ankara fabric. The heart- on-heart print was recreated by hand drawings of hearts with the use of wax on the Ankara fabric and then applying over this the batik natural dye technique to create the Batkara. The use of digital prints, old age Ankara fabric and batik techniques arise a merging, yet again, of the old and new.