Zambia Fashion Week Diaries (Thursday)

Thursday's lunch hour edition of Zambia Fashion Week was chaotic yet fun and creative. Verona Gordon's collection included children and men for the first time, who adorned themselves with flamboyant chitenge outfits, each one hard to imagine someone actually wearing on a day-to-day basis but still imaginative nonetheless.

Verona Gordon

Verona Gordon

Verona Gordon

Verona Gordon

The mother-and-child matching outfits garnered several "awwws" from the heavily muzungu-populated audience but the multi-ethnic catwalk was a welcome change, showing us a little diversity in what Zambia has to offer. Despite the models looking a little less than thrilled at having to carry children (I can't imagine having do strut down a catwalk carrying a child...incredible balance these women must have), the clothes were imaginative, colourful and had interesting cuts and angles using the traditional Zambian fabric we had seen most days during Fashion Week. Overall, it was nice to see a family-friendly show and Gordon stood out from the rest of the designers by having children's outfits on parade (and muzungus in her show as well).

The evening show gave us a double whammy of fantastic eveningwear, club outfits, sophisticated casualwear and all at the same time, intended for a similar audience of extremely fashion conscious and fashion-forward young urban women. Coretta Arnold came first followed by Nada in a double presentation Thursday evening.

Coretta Arnold's designs graced the catwalk first, with ground-sweeping dresses in bright "notice me" hues (a favourite included two white numbers with multi-coloured polka dots complete with a hot red waist-belt and the second with cute green ribbon sewn throughout) and model Precious Mumbi's barely-there sensual blue top overtop white wide-leg satin trousers made heads turn and eyes widen. A favourite on the men was the blue plaid vest (worn on both our gentleman host and the male model with no shirt underneath...definitely caught the ladies' eyes and I'm sure sold out after the show).

Coretta Arnold

Coretta Arnold

Coretta Arnold

Coretta Arnold

Following Coretta Arnold, the multi-talented Nada took the stage. Decked out in a belly-dancing ensemble, the designer herself opened her set with a dance performance, signalling that her show dictated her unique style and the many sides that exist to her.

Nada

Nada

Nada

Nada

Nada's vast collection of glamorous cocktail dresses and shimmering clubwear illuminated the catwalk with the first visibly "real" collection—outfits that you would definitely see women wearing on a daily basis to the appropriate function. It seems as though Nada designs for every occasion from formal evening functions to weddings to a night out with the ladies bumping and grinding in the clubs. She plays around with a lot of black and white working with both shades simultaneously to express her serious side in a fun ensemble and then surprises us with bold shades of red and baby pink to give her looks a softer edge.

She garnered a huge round of applause not only for her large and impressive collection at the end of her set but also for her own costume and impressive dance performance. Talk about bein artistic in more than one discipline.