NigeriansTalk

Where are all the true true Fash­ion­istas that walk the walk, talk the talk and blog the blog? Please tell me where I can get a daily if pos­si­ble a 3 square bal­anced meal of all things fash­ion from a fun but intel­li­gent per­spec­tive with some snack cat­walk goss in between? If only wishes were horse in Naija-Blogaria! We will get there, YES WE CAN!

Ok now that we’ve passed the Obama Intro or is it the JENIFA mini skit that’s reign­ing now? Any­ways mov­ing on, it is not really as bad as I have put it. When I started doing research for this piece, I had already started look­ing for blogs about fash­ion because I think I caught the fash­ion­pre­neur­ial Bug-I’m actu­ally on my way to becom­ing a world class fash­ion designer cour­tesy of House of Henri Fash­ion and Art Acad­emy, many a mag­a­zine a pull out that I pore over weekly, pre­sent­ing on tele­vi­sion (you gotta look the part even if you’re talk­ing about the weather) and now a bud­ding fash­ion writer (check me out in This­Day Style, TW Mag­a­zine and more to come), so WATCH THIS SPACE!

You have to give it up for J’adore who rightly clinched the prize in the Naija Blog­gers Award for the best fash­ion blog. She knows the real Coco not the one we drink or D Banj’s, she is on top and on par with the West and when­ever I need some help with all the fash­ion gram­mar, I know where to go. I love how she lives out what she preaches-FASHION. Whether she fea­tures in the pic­tures or not, you can­not leave with­out being inspired to up your game…dressing wise. Recently, she does a throw­back on cropped tops and rem­i­nisces on how she wore them in her high school days to par­ties in the coal town-Enugu.

Haute Africa is a web­site with a blog which is reg­u­larly updated depend­ing on what’s going on (Naija week­end events are very pop­u­lar here). So you know where to go and some­times there are some fash­ion nuggets from around the world. The Haute blog has the lat­est from this year’s ARISE African Fash­ion Week 2009, very cool pic­tures. The web­site also hosts tabs for Art, Design­ers, Art, Events, Fea­tures, Haute Spots, Haute Tv, Mod­els, Peo­ple & Trib­utes, Street Stylin’ and Dis­cuss (for the inter­ac­tive forum). Well done Wadami for still find­ing time to man­age the site as well as her round-the-clock job as the Edi­a­trix of Hi Magazine.

Rukks Ladoja of elan, the fash­ion pull out of NEXT on Sun­day news­pa­pers uses Rukky’s Frocks to express ‘The­o­ries of a lady woven from a dif­fer­ent type of aso-oke’ accord­ing to her byline. One thing about Rukks is that she’ll always find some­thing to write and find a way of tying it into fash­ion, so expect a per­sonal per­spec­tive of Lagos liv­ing and lifestyle and cos­mopoli­tan fash­ion. She can be quite tech­ni­cal though and is very well read, so some­times her pieces require some seri­ous read­ing and think­ing but you can be guar­an­teed some wit and sar­casm from this lady. ‘Get­ting to the Point’ is all about peo­ple telling her to cut to the chase, though she argues that while Obama does not do that, no one complains!

Elan has opened up its col­umn A Pas­sion for Fash­ion to all and sundry, so expect some­thing from me soon. I love the illus­tra­tions by Gbo­la­han Adams, he is soooo good but lest I digress, APFF serves as a social com­men­tary on the con­tro­ver­sial world of fash­ion. Recent posts have included a range of issues from hav­ing a super back­side (ikebe super) to Niger­ian brides hav­ing to wear a bolero and ofcourse it won’t be com­plete with­out the occa­sional rants from fashionistas-wannabe models,designers etc.

If you are will­ing to com­pro­mise pure fash­ion with enter­tain­ment and all then Bella Naija is one-stop for every­thing juicy and interesting…Naija style. Recently, its style pages have been opened up to the pub­lic where you get to share your sense of style to the world. The lat­est was from Sophia Egbelo, a Niger­ian young lady who described hers as ‘clean grunge’, which was cool and dark, I was totally not expect­ing it. The pic­tures really showed that she really under­stood her fash­ion iden­tity from the black make up to the slash rid­den jeans, she was mak­ing no apolo­gies for get­ting it right.

Niyi Tabiti’s gist­mas­ter has all the gos­sip and pic­tures. If you’re look­ing for a soft sell blog, look no further…everything from stars who com­mit fash­ion faux pas to the mar­riages and divorces of the Naija bigs gels and boiz, trust Niyi to dish out nicely! It is reg­u­larly updated with all the lat­est hap­pen­ing to Nige­ri­ans at home and in dias­pora. Right now like his con­tem­po­raries, he is giv­ing us the 411 on the ARISE Africa Fash­ion Week 2009.

Hmm, I have thought of start­ing my own fash­ion blog ‘The Sewing Box’ (feel free to sug­gest names and fol­low when I start) to chron­i­cle the tra­vails (machine nee­dle break­ing, sewing 12 pieces just to make 1 skirt with lin­ing, step­ping on pins and recently being bit­ten by ants as I drafted my pat­tern with light from my mobile phone) and joys (wear­ing my cre­ation to work and church and being com­pli­mented by every­one includ­ing my granpa who told my granma who bought the sewing machine and get­ting money from my other grandma to pay my fash­ion fees) of an upcom­ing fash­ion designer…trust me e no easy at all!

Isabella E.C. Akinseye