Tag: freemasons hall covent garden

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Africa Fashion Week London + Nigeria 2019

Talks and Walks    

Live AFWL Africa Fashion Week London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

It’s the most deliciously distinguished date of distinction on London’s August calendar – the Capital’s not-so-quiet summer month. The largest annual African fashion event in Europe. Yes, for one weekend Freemasons’ Hall Covent Garden plays architectural host to catwalk shows and exhibitions complemented by an African souk and food village. Welcome to the Grand Temple of African Style! A new addition this year is the Business Fashion Forum powered by EPG Media. Insightful talks and informative panel discussions feature guest speakers from the Mayor of London’s Office, Department of Trade UK and the V+A Museum not forgetting British perfume sensation Azzi Glasser. 

AFWL Africa Fashion Week Covent Garden © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Princess Ronke Ademiluyi is the esteemed founder and owner of Africa Fashion Week London and Nigeria. Known informally as “Rukkies”, she is a London trained lawyer. So how did she gracefully make the transition from Suits (law) to suits (fashion)? Her Royal Highness: “When I was in the university whatever I wore to school used to get a lot of compliments. At some point I thought why not make a business out of it? I often bought stuff for some of my fellow students, dressed them up and styled them. That is how the whole fashion thing came about.”

Showcase AFWL Africa Fashion Week London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Both London and Nigeria have been absolute runaway successes. Princess Ronke reveals, “Africa Fashion Week Nigeria has by the grace of God become the biggest driver in Nigeria for emerging brands. The London event is very mainstream in the sense we have a lot of mainstream media, fashion buyers and organisations who attend to see the latest coming out of Africa because it involves the 54 African countries. It is still promoting our culture as well because our fashion is our culture – it translates our cultural identity.”

AFWL Africa Fashion Week London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Joseph Farodoye, CEO of EPG Media announces, “This is a moment in history. We are an amazing bunch of people – beautiful, resilient! My mother says, ‘If you know better do better!’ Africa Fashion Week London has celebrated over 900 designers. When Ronke set it up it was for aspiring designers who are now established designers. “It’s now the largest and longest running culturally diverse fashion and trade exhibition in Europe. Let’s begin to change the narrative of the landscape – we are a vibrant people!” There’s liquid refreshment too seeping through all this glamour: Amarula. This drink is made from the Marula fruit of Sub Equatorial Africa. The Marula spirit is distilled and aged in French oak for two years then blended with a velvety cream to create the smooth taste of Amarula. Yesterday’s dream.

Backstage AFWL Africa Fashion Week London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Designers AFWL Africa Fashion Week London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Vanessa Gounden Africa Fashion Week London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Becca Apparel AFWL © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Becca Apparel Africa Fashion Week London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Makeup AFWL Africa Fashion Week London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Beauty AFWL Africa Fashion Week London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Style AFWL Africa Fashion Week London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

AFWL © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Model AFWL Africa Fashion Week London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

South African fashion designer Vanessa Gounden believes in merging creativity and business to be sustainable. “My husband and I are activists involved in the liberation. I’ve always had a passion for fashion!” she exclaims. “What is my actual USP? It’s an activist expression of wearable art – the very essence of how we can be more feminine and responsible. I’ve created an integrated atelier proud of ‘Made in South Africa’ goods that can compete in the international luxury market.” Vanessa Gounden is now open in Soho London’s Ham Yard Village. Today’s fashion; tomorrow’s vintage.

Hairstyle AFWL Africa Fashion Week London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Elisabeth Murray, Curator of Modern Fashion at the V+A, says the museum is “an amazing resource for designers and makers”, adding, “there are around 80,000 fashion and textiles objects”. Janet Browne, Senior Producer of Audience Development at the V+A Learning Academy, predominantly works with black audiences at the museum. Her aim is to “celebrate difference and tell the difference through narratives in the collections”. There are around 4,500 objects from Africa and its diaspora. Janet confides, “My favourite is the bust of a black youth made in the 18th century which stands proudly in the Europe Gallery. He has no collar so he wasn’t enslaved. We believe he was probably a gondolier who worked for himself in Italy. The bust is made of marble with glass buttons. I love him!”

Africa Fashion © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Africa Fashion Week London is packed with other fashionable dignitaries taking part. To name just a few: Her Royal Highness Queen Diambi Kabatusuila Tshiyoyo Muata of the Democratic Republic of Congo; Her Excellency Erelu Bisi Fayemi, First Lady of Ekiti State, Nigeria; and Her Excellency Mrs Olufolake Abdulrazaq, First Lady of Kwara State, Nigeria. August isn’t August isn’t august without Africa Fashion Week London. And Christmas isn’t complete without Africa Fashion Week Nigeria. As for the First Lady of Fashion, Mary Martin, after triumphantly showcasing her premier menswear collection at Africa Fashion Week London she’s flying off to present the highlights of her show at Africa Fashion and Cultural Week, Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.

Vanessa Gounden Material © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Design Fashion Luxury People

Africa Fashion Week London 2019 + Models

A Day at the Face Track

Africa Fashion Week London Backstage © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Amidst the pandemonium that is the fashion show backstage, it’s impossible not to every so often glimpse the beautifully suffused light seeping through the stained glass windows, like a carpet of crushed blue sapphires. For one day a year, Freemason’s Hall in Covent Garden becomes a Cathedral of Couture. Later as the sun goes down, all eyes are on the catwalk, not on a skylight twinkling high above like a yellow sapphire encrusted in the ceiling.

Freemmason's Hall Holborn Africa Fashion Week London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Africa Fashion Week London Models © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Freemason's Hall Covent Garden Africa Fashion Week London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Africa Fashion Week London Model © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Freemason's Hall Africa Fashion Week London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Africa Fashion Week London Model Backstage © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Freemason's Hall Stained Glass Africa Fashion Week London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakl

Becca Apparel Africa Fashion Week London © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Art Design Fashion Luxury People

Africa Fashion Week London 2019 + Mary Martin London

More Than Many Sparrows

“Mary Martin London stole the 5pm show with a colourful menswear collection.” Africa Fashion Week London official spokesperson

Multi award winning fashion designer Mary Martin took the capital by storm at this year’s Africa Fashion Week London. In a truly electrifying performance – for performance it was, combining art, design, choreography, fashion and music – she set Freemason’s Hall in Covent Garden alight. It may have been Mary’s inaugural men’s collection but the Queen of Couture couldn’t resist adding a showstopping feminine finale. Wrapped in a body stocking covered with one of Mary’s own prints, ‘Slaves in the Woods’, Aidia strutted her stuff to thunderous applause. The crowd went wild!

Only Mary would have her very own soundtrack. Music’s in the veins: her daughter Celetia is a singer songwriter (vocals for Groove Armada; lyrics for Janet Jackson). Freemasons’ Hall rocked hard to an Afrobeats hit by DeJavu. The song? ‘Mary Martin London‘. She acknowledges it’s been a lot of work designing and making her first ever menswear in the space of a few months. “Blood, sweat and tears!” The raunchy collection is dedicated to the 400 year anniversary of the first African slaves landing in America.

One of the designer’s favourite models Howey Ejegi closed the men’s show to yet more thunderous applause. The crowd went even wilder! Mary Martin Men, both on and off the catwalk, is brave, bold, brilliantly conceived. It somehow simultaneously captures movement and silhouette, definition and intangibility, light and shade. Just as she revolutionised the couture dress, so Mary has produced a collection that celebrates the male form through novel and exciting reinventions. The interplay is very very sexy.

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Art Design Fashion Luxury People

Queen Diambi Kabatusuila Tshiyoyo Muata of the Bakwa Indu People of the Luba Empire Kasaï Democratic Republic of Congo + Lavender’s Blue

Remember Us This Way

In the midst of the boldness and brilliance that is Africa Fashion Week London, Her Royal Highness Queen Diambi arrives peak afternoon with Her Royal Entourage. The African Queen graciously shares her wisdom: “It’s a beautiful day to be alive, to be in London. So I am a female king. I want to give the people of the world the type of entrepreneurship and creativity we have in Africa. The image of the woman in Africa has for too long been dictated by the western idea of beauty. We went into a path copying France and Italy thinking it is only acceptable to wear a suit to a business meeting. But we are very colourful. The time has come – we can be unapologetically African!”

“Africa is really the most ancient continent in the world, the start of civilisation and that includes fashion. Mathematics started in Africa. The fundamental principles of all types of science – architecture, urbanism – have their source in Africa. Check out the pyramids – they’re still standing! Africa is still to be discovered in so many ways. The world is playing catchup with Africa. We don’t have to play catchup – we can take the lead!”

“Today is a great time to be alive. A day of assessment. Now is the time to go back in time, to reclaim our wisdom throughout the centuries. To reclaim where we belong. To determine our own path. To redefine the parameter of our own development and prosperity. Our African image is of great value in terms of a development asset. If we are proud of who we are, wear our motifs and not fit in with the mainframe, then we can also sustain the fashion economy – we can make our own business prosperity.”

“If we are not promoting our own who are we promoting? How we look is a political choice. Experience is something they can never take away from you. They can take your things but not your history. We have to lead by example. We are really one African family – we have an obligation to tear those walls down. We have to start tearing the barriers down.”

“All these things and the fashion bring us together. We are all coming from the same home – my European brothers are not so far from Africa. Africans are not just dark skinned. Africa is the motherland for every being. Look after your mother to be blessed! We are one global economy – we need to be our brothers’ keepers to make it. Together we thrive. I am because you are.” And with that said, the drum rolls and Her Royal Highness Queen Diambi departs into the deep night with Her Royal Entourage.