I'd never heard of Martha Jabo here til I opened the papers today, and upon seeing a selection of the designs she showcased at
Swahili fashion Week in Dar December 2012, I immediately wanted to know/see more. These weren’t jawdroppingly awesome mind you, but
they were fresh enough to make me hit Google a few seconds after reading the
article instead of just flipping the page and forgetting her. And I’m glad I
did. Otherwise this post wouldn't have to come to be.
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| Why she was wearing that fugly pounds adding jumpsuit when she had all those beautiful items to her left to chose from I shall never know |
24year old Martha is a fresh graduate of
MUK’s Arts and Applied Design who’s been actively pursuing fashion design for a
year now. No modest ambition for Martha here, she wants to target the High end
market and plans to launch her official line, Jabo Designs this May.
Enough about the designer, on to the
designs. These were my favorite pieces, I’m so into chiffon right now and also love them cuz the African print doesn’t seem so glaring in your face African print. You can substitute any other bold print here and get same amazeballs result.
These on the other hand… I get the asymmetrically - it's on trend, it edgies up the collection, its too cool for school I-can't-be-bothered-to-colour-within-the-lines kinda thing and all - but I don’t like it. Boo hoo!
I just have one bone to pick with her (and
almost every other up and coming African designer – why must all items of the
collection have African print? Do you worry we won't take you as a genuine African
designer if the prints are missing? God knows Africa produces other fabrics
other than Batik, Tie & Dye, Maasai and Kikoi. We won't judge if you eschew the
African prints (I won't at least. In fact I'll applaud!) , a good design is a good design! Take Kunda for example, great
designs, but because they have such high fashion silhouettes and are in print, they
lose the originality, I feel like it’s the less privileged cousin of Gwen Stefani’s
2011 collection. )
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| See what I mean? Every single piece had "African Print" on it! EVERY! |
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