Christine Onwuachumba
Iniobong Obinna-Onunkwo, Founder and Creative Director of the Afrocentric fashion brand, ‘Little Weavers’, was looking forward to holding her runway show this year. But when the unprecedented pandemic torpedoed those plans, she came up with a new way to unveil her latest collection to the world.Thus, birthed the first ever Nigerian virtual and beauty runway show.
It was streamed live on the Instagram in which each model appeared on runway against an Ankara-designed backdrop. Tons of ‘Little Weavers’ followers tuned in. The virtual show was just the most recent manifestation of Iniibong’s push to chart her own path in the fashion industry, leveraging on social media to build a thriving direct-to-consumer business.
‘Little Weavers’ is an Afrocentric heritage brand that celebrates African culture and lifestyle through fashion for young people and young minds. The brand is usually inspired by different cultural or social events. These events inform on the creative concepts that are designed to connect and inspire her young audience on historic periods witnessed in Africa.
Prior to the time when she hosted the event, Iniobong was inspired to motivate the girl-child during this pandemic period to utilize their time properly and think along the lines of empowerment opportunities and entrepreneurship. Thus, to achieve this goal, she decided to showcase collections from a few emerging female entrepreneurs in the fashion and beauty industry that were birthed in August.
The runway collection themed “My August Power” was inspired by the period to motivate young females that possess fashion and craft skills and utilize them for enterprising purposes like millinery, tailoring and make-up.