"Ladybrille February 18, 2008 at 6:44 pm
I do think Toju’s designs work and I highly commend her for lacking the “formal” training but being able to design.
From the cascading ruffles to the tulip like dresses, I like what she has produced.
Also, she has not dubbed herself as a couturier.
Rather she is making ready to wear collection.
Simply put, there is only so much ways you can cut clothes, in a ready to wear collecion/line. It is is not wearable art or some sort of French couture. It’s meant for the everyday woman. To that degree, she gets a high fashion score for functionality.
I think the deciding factor then becomes fabric selection/prints, colors and design details.
My verdict, for a up and coming designer with no formal training, not bad.
Someone alluded to being in fashion school as the needed stamp of approval. While I am a firm believer in education and happen to be in fashion school, I don’t believe great designers have to go through formal training. In fact so many great designers did not necesarily go through formal training. They were self taught and learned from other great ones by apprenticing for them or observing. So, it need not be a formalized training.
BTW, I do know designers with formal training who can’t sew to save their lives. Their strength is sketching and they outsource the work, draw up an intellectual property agreement with the outsourced designers and claim they did the work. They can do that. It’s legal and quite common.
Others who can design, as their business expands, they simply do not have the time to run a fashion company, handle all administrative aspects and then also design every garment. To meet demand, they hire deisgners, again draw up an IP agreement and usually they oversee the work to make sure it is in line with their brand.
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| Bella Naija |
Toju’s work is a start and obviously there is room for improvement.
Toju I like all your designs except #3. What were you thinking? Looks like she went to the bathroom and forgot to pull down her dress!
