Fashion is a universal language that unites all people of different races, tribes, and gender. It is an ancient art that is not going away any time soon.
The Nivea Accra Fashion Week 2019 with the theme the Year of the Return kicked off from the 2nd to the 6th of October, 2020. The theme served as a form of a campaign by the Ghanian government to woo investors and tourists from the diaspora.
Fashion designers from various countries, including Nigeria, Togo, Ivory Coast, the United States and the United Kingdom were represented at the fashion show. The show saw an assortment of styles and designs that were both creative and beautiful, leaving the viewers hungry for more.
Designers at the fashion event displayed a mix of Avant grade and conventional designs on the runway with a whole array of colourful fabrics, which were both manually and industrially produced.
Theme
The theme, the Year of the Return, was embodied in the entire show as designers showed that Africa has what the fashion world is waiting for. Some features that showed the forward-thinking quality of the organisers of the fashion week were the live streaming of the Gala Night and the SHOPTHERUNWAY concept that was introduced.
The Gala Night was the opening night of the fashion show and it featured Avant grade designs with the theme “Africa Wow”. This theme was explained to mean African inspired creative costumes that generate amazement among the crowd.
Seeing as the Gala Night required VIP tickets for admission, it was live-streamed to in 32 different countries to allow for a wider audience to view it. The idea behind this was to expose Ghanian fashion to a wider audience who might have heard of the creativity of Ghanaian designers but not had the chance to experience it first-hand. It also helped to create an international platform for the event.
SHOPTHERUNWAY is an online shop for designers who participate in the show to showcase their products, for purchase, online to an audience from around the world. This e-commerce platform is a platform that exposes African designers to potential customers from around the world.
The fashion show also featured seminar sessions to discuss Africa’s place in international fashion and how to expose the fashion business beyond the borders of Ghana.
In all, the theme was very fitting for the fashion event.
Responsiveness of Fashion Lovers
The fashion week was well attended by fashion lovers and businessmen and women alike. Local, intercontinental and international designers showed up in encouraging numbers and celebrities in the music and movie industries were well represented at the event.
Setup and Decor
The setup and decor of the fashion event were quite different from the norm. Unlike in normal runway shows where there is a straight catwalk with an LED screen at the back, this one had mirrors.
The catwalk itself was green and had the look of artificial carpet grass to it. At either side of the head of the runway sat a mirror each and the models emerged from behind the mirrors.
On these mirrors were reflections of the green runway and the models as they walked down the aisle. Because of the reflections from the mirrors, the runway looked more like a three pathway runway than a single path runway and it gave a full view of the models and their outfits.
At the centre of the runway, in between both mirrors, sat a screen that displayed different coloured light, adding to the uniqueness and the beauty of the fashion show. On both sides of the mirrors were regular LED screens to show the names of designers as models walk the runway.
Like other fashion shows, guests sat at either side of the runway to watch the beauty of fashion unfold before their eyes.
