Lessons and highlights from African Fashion Week Toronto

Lesson #1: Get your alphet (outfit) right 😉

I finally attended my first ever Africa Fashion week here in Toronto a couple of weekends ago.  There were quite a few lessons and some pretty dope highlights.

SPOILER ALERT! My girl Catherine’s brand Kaela Kay came to win, and win she did.

Highlights:

Kaela Kay

There was no other reason why I went to this show other than to support my girl Catherine. Since running into her a couple of years ago, I’ve become very fond of her and her brand (which I’ve blogged about here, here and here).  She is doing such great work with it and I’m happy to see she’s getting attention even from our neighbours to the south. When I say she came to win, I’m not exaggerating. She won the Women’s Designer of the Year Award and deservedly so.  Catherine has mastered the print on print and I’m here for all of it!

 Grace Modi
I have a new girl crush and her name is Grace Modi. Girlfriend was WERKING it. I had to give her 2 snaps every time she came down the runway. She was serving face, body and giving every outfit LIFE.  Here she is strutting her stuff in one of my favourite pieces from Kaela Kay. *adds to Christmas list*

Black Trash

I’ve never heard of these designers but their stuff was pretty bad ass. I loved the infusion of zips into most of the outfits. There is a certain type of confidence and rebelliousness that these clothes exude and I say yes, yes, yes! Encore!

Lessons:

Bring a friend not only because it’s good company but because you can have them take pictures while you capture footage!Winning!

Clear your phone of unnecessary pics and videos! I ran out of space on my phone so I was not able to get much footage  and got none of the Black Trash and Palse shows. Boo!

Bring a charger! I forgot mine! Major fail! But luckily my girl had hers so we pulled through.

Bring a snack to eat during intermission! Lawdt, the show was long and even though I’d eaten prior I was so hungry I thought I’d pass out.

So bring something to tide you over till exit time.

Here the rest of the designers:

Achonu House (Toronto)

Palse (South Africa)

Vicky Muzadi (Angola)