March 23, 2016

Miss G: Chic Afrique

This past weekend was my best friends wedding and I was blessed be a part of the wedding as a bridesmaid. It was an absolutely beautiful wedding and a fabulous weekend of celebrations! Now of course with every wedding, there is a lot of planning and preparations needed. When it is an African wedding, there is even more planning and prep needed to be done. Furthermore, as a bridesmaid in an African wedding, there is the stressful task of getting your getting your bridesmaid evening gown and also getting your traditional bridesmaid dress made...

For this wedding, the bridesmaid evening gown was ordered online. I will provide more details about that experience in another post re-capping my time in the wedding, so look out for that post. Now, when it came to having my traditional dress made, I had a dilemma. Those who know me, know that I have a fashion line called 'AfroGlam Designs' that I started a while back when I was in university. I designed and sewed all the pieces myself for clients, and also presented my designs at multiple fashion shows as well as events. As a the designer for AfoGlam Designs, I also partnered with a number of brands in showcasing my designs and promoting African fashion. However, as time went on and life became more busy, I put my fashion line on hold.


Consequently, it had been a while since I had last sewn an outfit, plus my sewing machine is very old and not working too well. Therefore, I was not sure what to do about my traditional bridesmaid dress; should I sew it myself or take it to another African seamstress. Because I am so last minute, before I knew it the wedding was around the corner and it was too late to even consider taking my African print material to a seamstress LOL. So, I took out the old sewing machine and embarked on the task of making my outfit. Though it was a struggle, as my machine kept acting up and caused me to take double the time to complete my dress, in the end I was able to complete my outfit and was very pleased with the final look. Throughout the wedding festivities, I received a lot of compliments and a very positive response to my look.

This experience has inspired me begin preparations to re-launching my fashion line. I have been wanted to re-launch for a while now, but kept delaying on buying a new sewing machine. Well, the delaying has now ended! While AfroGlam Designs was my main fashion line, during that time I had planned to start a second line called 'Chic Afrique' which would be a more mature and sophisticated line with chic African inspired pieces. As I feel my current style and design aesthetic is more along these lines, I have decided to relaunch my fashion line as 'Chic Afrique' with ready to wear pieces.

This was the logo I had created for Chic Afrique back then. I still like the concept, however I will definitely be tweeking it a bit to make it more modern.

So stay tuned, more info coming soon...

~G~

The AfroFusion Spot Youtube Channel