Tiana Bubu Top || Crochet X Tailoring

The whole idea of fashion is to express yourself and in most cases being a design put the expression tools right in your hand and gives you wings to fly. But what happens when you’re yet to find yourself? How do you express yourself without feeling like a fake ?

The past few years I’ve rocked different designs on the red carpet all different and even better than the last ones were, they looked pretty attracted load of compliments that made me giggle anytime I thought about it but it didn’t feel like it was enough I was hungry for more, for something that felt like me for something I was very comfortable in and didn’t feel conscious even one bit.

This year is all about rediscovering myself through fashion and when fashion week came knocking I knew I had the right opportunity to wear me, style my and feel at home in a crowd of hundreds of people.

In my last blog I mentioned the bag I made for the show, but I left out a little detail. In a bid to express myself nothing was left out, the jewelry, the shoes, my outfit and obviously not my bag. I like structure and simplicity, the bag being the first of the set that was made set the pace for the rest and balanced out the action that was going on on the top.

When I was designing the top I thought to myself “what are you comfortable in?” “What would you easily throw on?” “What feels like you?” And in Nigeria we call them rich auntie outfits and these are bubu gowns, tops, the simple but classy look and there I found my style.

As much as I wanted simple I experimented with stitches I had never tried before just to give it a simple but not plan look, and making the wavy stitch took way longer than I anticipated and the part I dread the most was having to do it on the second side but as a strong girl I pulled through.

I only crochet so I got help from my mom with sewing the lining and the organza on the hand and I literally screamed when I went to pick it up at her shop. It looked amazing and I was taken aback, I know what I sketched but I was blown away.

The theme for this year was fusion and my idea was to fuse crochet and tailoring to create one masterpiece, I had a designer work on a matching color for the pants and if you’ve been here long enough you know I’m a gradient girly to the end

I made the pickup the night before the event and it already looked perfect
Fashion week came and I was networking, talking to designers and I had the most fun all because I finally made something that felt like me and expressed me.