Ohene Mantse Just Released A Hand-Dye Inspired Collection: Our Review

A fashion collection is an expression of a fashion designer’s creativity in terms of silhouettes, cuts, details, and many more. Most fashion designers with years of experience in the fashion industry usually release 2 collections every year to reflect the latest styles and trends in the industry.

For upcoming fashion designers, however, their first collection, also known as a debut collection, is a chance to showcase to the whole world their passion, and level of creativity in designing fashion outfits.

Read More: Idia Aisien Recently Launched Her Debut Fashion Collection, And Here Are Our Thoughts

Johnson Martey Junior just released his debut fashion collection under his fashion label, Ohene Mantse, featuring a range of outfits for both males and females. Here’s our review the collection.

About Ohene Mantse

Ohene Mantse is a Ghanaian fashion brand that produces timeless and conscious pieces that are fashionable without being fickle. The brand is a preacher of sustainability as most of the products and materials used are eco-friendly and so are not harmful to the environment.

The fashion label is owned by Johnson Martey Junior, an Information Technology graduate, who branched into fashion designing after many months of being unemployed. The brand was birthed through the frustration and a need to clutch his passion to be an established and celebrated fashion designer.

Inspiration For The Collection

Just like Imane Ayissi released a fashion collection made entirely from scrap fabrics during the lockdown, Johnson Martey Junior also started working on this collection at the beginning of the pandemic. In creating this collection, he took into consideration the surroundings, vast landscapes, roots, and values of his country. And just like the brand shared,

“This collection is inspired by nature and is meant to transmit power, energy and freedom.”

Also, Johnson Martey Junior is one African designer who is committed to refreshing the West African, and especially the Ghanaian traditional wardrobe for men and women, so this was also factored into making the debut collection.

Production Techniques

As you may already know, older and traditional methods of making clothes are quite different from what we have today. The artisans and tailors then mostly made use of hand-weaving and hand-dyeing techniques to produce outfits. They used sustainable materials such as raffia, organic cotton, and many more to make their clothes. In making this collection, the founder of Ohene Mantse channelled this energy.

As a strong defender of sustainability and transparency in the fashion sector, the brand owner employed the use of organic and sustainable materials, such as cotton and silk, and coloured them through hand-made, natural dyes for the collection.

Just like Bijoux Trendy, the Tanzanian sustainable fashion brand that employs these traditional methods and techniques provides affordable tie and dye pieces for customers, the Ohene Mantse brand creates fashionable pieces as well.

Collection Pieces

It’s one thing to be able to employ traditional techniques to design clothes, but it is another ball game entirely to be creative enough to design modern pieces that can be worn by both male and female.

How did the Ohene Mantse brand do?

Most of the pieces in the collection showcase a pop of colour either from the hand-dyed fabric or the flowery-patterned fabrics.

“We embarked on a celebration of colour for this collection, thereby creating a tableau of pastel and neutral-tined reminiscent of the rise and settling of the sun.”

The pieces, despite made with traditional methods and techniques, are indeed modern and can be worn to various occasions. The collection pieces consist of wide-leg pants, shorts, colourful shirts, button-down skirts and many more, all of which are contemporary pieces.

The collection is an expression of traditional and old techniques to create modern outfits, and this generally makes the collection different. Kudos to Johnson Martey Junior for delivering an exquisite debut collection.