There is no doubt that fashion is on the swing, especially with lots of young fashion entrepreneurs showing what they can do to match the trends, and in other cases recreate what has been created by another fashion designer.
Holistically, as fashion consumers, we are spontaneous with choosing how we want to look, and that most times means checking for a style in a fashion book or magazine and demanding our stylist to recreate it for us. The creative limitation of such act is that it takes away originality and gives us an appearance of what we have seen and not what we have imagined or created specifically for us. However, this problem doesn’t always lie with the customers, as the fashion designer has to create original design for each customer and convince them of how and why it would suit them.
Therefore, while there are several fashion designers, there are only a few original and skilled ones. Atoke Atelier falls into the latter category as one of Nigeria’s exceptional fashion designers with authenticity, creativity, and the ability to be diverse.
Atoke Atelier recently released her long-awaited ‘Amope Collection’and an in-depth review of the collection and how it amplifies the Nigerian culture and fashion history stamps the fact that Oduronbi Funmilola Olajuwon, the brand’s Creative Director, is an original designer with fresh ideas and a courageous personality that has given her brand an edge based on the fashion risks she took in bringing Amope Collectionto life.
Amope Collection is fashion executed away from the norm or trends that are consistently recycled. It is a variety of clothing that manifests the beauty of a people, their history and culture, self-expression, self-confidence, and a progression of life from past to present. It encourages a marriage of fashion history and fashion trends. It also accommodates flair while exhibiting elegance. Each clothe, when worn, brandishes one as African and modern. Oduronbi crafts designs that display our heritage and infuses distinct ideas that make it look refreshing. Amope Collection tells a unique story, as it’s all stitched to reveal the physical features of the African woman, while preserving her integrity and helping show the beauty within – a right step in another direction from the fast-paced world of fashion that only browses the surface.
Before the final release of the Amope Collection,glimpses of it had featured on the Atoke Atelier Runway Show in August 2022 in Abeokuta, Ogun State, and at African Fashion Week held at Eko Hotels and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos in September 2022. At both outings, the collection was widely accepted, and it can be said categorically that Amope Collection is“for the modern African woman to embrace the wholeness of her culture and harness the essence of her womanhood.”
The collection subscribes to the roots of Abeokuta for inspiration, as most of it was created from the Adire fabric, thereby making it an authentic and glamorous fashion export to Europe and other continents.
Amope Collectionshows that Atoke Atelier understands that fashion is involved in the process of becoming a better version of oneself, as the confidence with which one expresses herself begins with the way one is dressed. This collection highlights simplicity, elegance, luxury, passion, and individuality. It equally has a piece for every woman, for any type of event, setting or occasion.