Arise Magazine Fashion Week

Move over Fashion Capital Cities like NewYork, London and Paris, African Fashion is on the Rise! and the first stop - Lagos Nigeria.

In the words of the organizers, "The first-ever ARISE Magazine Fashion Week is coming to town. We’ve invited 50 top African designers, including Tiffany Amber, Jewel By Lisa, Klûk CGDT, Christie Brown and Xuly Bët, to grace our runways with their autumn/winter 2011 collections. This prestigious event will be held at the Federal Palace Hotel from March 10 –13, culminating in the ARISE Magazine Fashion Awards (http://www.arisemagazine.net/)"

Over 50 online magazines and blogs such as Bella Naija, Haute Fashion Africa, Y! Magazine,etc covered the event with hundreds of more people re tweeting the links on twitter and sharing the link on facebook.

The event seemed to have some positive reviews, as Nigerian R&B Star Darey Art Alade noted that the event and awards were fun. (http://twitter.com/darey)

HauteFashionAfrica headlines after the event was "Arise Magazine Fashion Week Came & Conquered" (http://twitter.com/HauTeFashionAFR)

Despite having a fun time at the event, the folks over at Fashion Finest Magazine were spotted saying "The fun of arise magazine fashion week is over. Now to get ready for d mahogany bridal show takin place on sunday 20 march" (http://twitter.com/fashionfinest)

We can conclude then that the event was success. This is without a doubt the beginning of many more groundbreaking event to come for the Fashion Industry in Africa.

Photography....

Jide Alakija Blog

Take a moment to click on the photography website link above, take a look at it but do not get too carried away, come on back and lets discuss.

The development of photography amongst Africans cannot go unnoticed. It apparently also seems to be the new thing; quite a number of young Africans now own cameras, either an actual camera or a camera phone. There are even more people that are beginning to do photography professionally, taking it as a very seriously passion and covering events like weddings, maternity shoots, birthdays, etc.
Another interesting development to take note of is the combination of photography and blogging. Like the example given above, photographers now use blogs as a way to connect to clients and potential clients while showcasing the work they can provide. It is obviously a great marketing tool for these photographers.
The African professional photographers market is male dominated with a few women in the industry. I spoke to one of the females who seems to have a deep passion for photography as an art. In her own words, photography for her started as a hobby, and then she figured out a way to monetize on it. She had to learn how to use professional cameras and also learnt how to use the editing software; mainly by enlisting the help of a mentor who already had many years of experience in the field. Today she has many clients who book her for their various weddings.
Her name is J’Blaze and more of her can be found on:

http://nouvellebyjblazeblog.com/

Photographs are awesome, they capture time and events. It's a wonderful thing to see Africans now venturing into this industry and excelling at it.

African Culture.

The African Culture is very rich with different traditions and values.
Below is a clip of a group of Ladies carrying gifts to present to the President of Nigeria when he visited a small town in the country called Sagamu. The calabashes were filled with kola nuts