The proper fit for the right look.

There is a lot that goes into looking your best from the right coloured outfit, its design and the correct fit.

Wearing clothes that fit is key to looking your best. Ever seen a person wearing a beautiful dress that just doesn’t fit right? It messes up the whole look right?

So how do you tell that the outfit you’re wearing fits right? Below are examples of what happens when clothes don’t fit right.

My top 10 looks from our very own Kenyan designers at the Swahili Fashion Week.

The Swahili Fashion Week catwalk was blazing with designers from various countries across the African continent. Our very own Ki2 fashions, Patricia Mbela and Sonu Sharma proudly represented Kenya with breathtaking designs that were meticulously tailored.

My top 10 looks from Ki2’s and Sharma’s collection.

Loving the use of pleats on the skirt and the blazer  rocks!

Awesomeness :-)

Take a look - these are some of the custom made outfits that we have done for our clients

In a faraway land, lived a beauty.She wore a pleated collar maxi......

Her friend came along in a bubble dress,notice the flower on the left?

                                                                                           

On a chilled out day, she wore a shirt dress and paired it with her tights....

Her friend wore a jump suit and off they went....

notice how well it fits her.The outfit is made of jersey fabric and leso.

She then changed into this beautiful outfit where we used different fabrics to make the panels....

Take a look at the full view here....awesomeness!

On a semi official day she wore a beautiful high waist skirt made from African fabric.

Take a closer look here....flyness!

On a casual day, she wore a coat made from African fabric....... 

They both went to work, her friend wore a suit....

                                                     
                                                       and she wore an official dress made from African fabric.....

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What colours look best on you?

I was racking my brain on what to blog about today and the brilliant idea of colour came to mind. We have this outfit that is hanging from the wall of our workshop that has the most interesting blend of colours. You know the ones that you would never ever think would work together but they do because they are complementary to each other on the colour wheel. An example would be green and red, blue and orange and many more. To put this in context, it’s very possible to get away with wearing a red blouse and a green jumper….sounds weird right? And a bit like you would be clashing colours, right? Depending on how you rock complementary colours, you can create a look that is stunning, fashionable and uniquely you. However before we rock complementary colours it’s necessary to understand the different colours that work with our different skin undertones.

The colour you wear can either flatter your skin tone or wash you out making you look dull. Knowing your skin undertone will help you determine what colours to wear and which ones to avoid so that you look your best at all times J

When you wear a colour that suits your skin tone, your skin tone will appear radiant and glowing and your eyes will appear brighter and clearer. Who ever thought that colour had such an effect on appearance!

Skin undertones can be divided into three main categories – warm, cool and neutral. So, how do you go about knowing your skin undertone? There is several ways of doing this and trying out a combination of a few will give you an accurate answer to what your skin tone is. The methods below produce more accurate results when done in a well lit area preferably natural light.

1.       Look at the inside of your forearms, the part of your arm that your wrist watch would lie if you are wearing one or if you wore one. What colour are your veins? Do they appear green or blue? If they are green, like most pips I know, then we can safely say you have warm undertones. If they are blue then we can say you have cool undertones. The rationale behind this goes back to the art lessons in primary school .Yellow plus blue makes green. Veins are blue but when viewed through skin with a warm (yellow) undertone they look green. See, God is quite the artist.

2.       The other way you could determine this is by placing gold jewellery and silver jewellery against your skin. Which metal shines on you? Which metal makes you look more radiant? If gold looks better on you, we can say that you have warm undertones. If silver looks better on you, we can say that you have cool undertones. Ask an honest friend to help you out with deciding this. This piece of info will not only help you pick out what colours to wear but also what jewellery looks best on you.

3.     Lastly, place a piece of white paper under your chin and look in the mirror. The white paper will reflect on your face, if the skin looks closer to yellow or golden, then you have a warm skin tone. If the skin looks pink with some blue undertones, then your skin tone is cool.

If you are still having problems determining your skin tone, you might just have a neutral tone. And you know what that means? You will look good in both warm and cool colours….I envy you J

Now that we have figured out your skin undertone, let’s discuss what colours work best for you.Warm undertones go best with peach, yellow, orange, olive green, bronze, brown, rust, yellowish-greens and orange based reds, generally earth tones. The colour swatches below will give you a better idea of the colours that will look great on you.

Warm

                                                   

Cool

                                                                          

Cool undertones look best in jewel tones which include blues, greens, pinks, purples, blue-greens, magentas and blue-based reds and silver, white and black look great on you as well. The colour swatches above will give you a better idea of the colours that will flatter you.

Now you know what colours will flatter you most.

Feel free to give me any feedback on this blog post J

Have a colourfulflatteringious day! (Yes, I just made up a word) J

Steve Jobs: A fashion icon?

Steve Jobs: A fashion icon?

It’s been a few weeks since the passing of one of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs and visionaries; Steve Jobs. It feels a little weird blogging about him in a non techy way without alluding to any of his genius inventions, the iPods, iPads, iMac and maybe iFashion someday J. This would be really interesting don’t you think….clothes that perhaps have a self washing app and you would never have to do any laundry or an app that once input into an outfit could transform itself to whatever outfit you wanted whatever the occasion (mmmhh, that however would put fashion houses like us out of business), I wonder what we would call such outfits, iTransformers?

So since Steve Jobs passing away, he has become sort of a fashion icon. How do you explain St. Croix’s (the men’s fashion label that claims to have sold Jobs his now infamous turtle necks) selling out their similar styled turtle necks at a crazy price of 175 dollars (approximately Kshs17, 500….yikes!). Waaa, we would be millionaires if we could sell all our outfits for that much. Perhaps it’s time to pursue a partnership with St. Croix *stares into space building castles*. The turtle necks have become so popular that there is now a controversy over who designed and supplied them to Jobs. According to a fashion news website, St. Croix claims that Jobs purchased roughly two dozen turtle necks annually and even occasionally called the label’s owner to tell him how much he liked them. That’s one part of the story. The other is obtained from an upcoming biography of Jobs written by Walter Isaccson. The story goes that Jobs was on a trip to Japan in the early 1980s and while there he asked Sony’s Chairman why everyone in the company wore uniforms. The chairman responded by saying that after the war, no one had any clothes and the company had to give their workers something to wear each day. This was functional and it also served as a way to bond workers to the company. Jobs loved the idea and decided he wanted the same for Apple. He called Issey Miyake who has designed uniforms for Sony and asked him to design a vest for Apple. Jobs went back with some samples and told his team that it would be great if they wore the vests but the idea got laughed off. He decided it would be nice to have a uniform for himself and Issey designed and made him about a hundred of the turtle necks in question.

Jobs, in his death has been celebrated by fashion experts such as Robin Givhan describing his style as “unquestionably efficient and banal, yet with just the tiniest hint of Steve McQueen cool”. So is Steve Jobs really a fashion icon? My take, Jobs did not care too much about what he wore as long as he was comfortable enough to get stuff done and choosing an outfit that he could wear daily took away the hassle of having to think too hard about his appearance in public. But for this exceptional gentleman, a lot about him will be celebrated including his simple sense of style.

Regards,

Fashion Entreprenuer.

The Dream Is Born

Books are amazing, books give knowledge and wisdom, books entertain, books shape thinking and books inspire among a whole lot else. The book Rich Dad, Poor Dad  (you must have heard of it if not read it and contrary to what some say, It’s not a 13 ways to get rich kinda book) caused a complete paradigm shift for me (yay! I managed to squeeze in a phrase in my first blog post that makes me sound learnedJ).It was at that point after reading the book that I decided and got almost convinced that I wanted to become an entrepreneur.That was in my second year of campus.

I went through campus studying a course that I loved but the dream of becoming an entrepreneur persisted and slowly business ideas begun to pop. However, one business idea stuck and that was of an online store. This idea itched like an ant biting in the wrong place. Ever heard the saying “The severity of an itch is inversely proportional to the ability to reach it.”If you think about this saying, it’s so true, ever had a Safari ant go up the wrong way….I digress, back to how this dream was born.

So, I leave campus and have practically nothing, no capital, no knowledge on how to run a business, only an idea and the zeal to see it through. What to do? I applied for a loan but the application got rejected. In retrospect, (another hard word, boy I’m on a rollJ) I’m kinda glad it got rejected, might have ended up in serious debt).My two cents worth, it’s not very advisable to start a business on a loan unless the money has been borrowed from friends and family who can allow you to pay it off slowly as you make the money back. That’s just my two cents worth and probably a whole other blog post. Time to come up with a game plan…..I decide to seek employment and use the money from my salary to set up the business. It worked and after months and months and months and months of saving, I was able to set up a website which we are revamping soon (it’s coming back bigger and better thanks to all your critical reviews).From my savings, I was also able to buy a sewing machine and hire space which we use as a workshop to process our custom made orders. And that’s how we (we refers to the team I work with and the support system around me) begun, our first clients are so etched in my mind.What!!!God bless them for trusting us with their orders.

It’s been an interesting journey where many tears have been shed (ye I said it, tears have been shed when the going got tough), laughter shared (it’s not all gloom) and lessons learnt (these are the most precious and once grasped they propel the business to the next level).

We are not there yet, we are still facing a myriad of challenges but we have the assurity that with God as our guide/Chairman of board we will succeed.

Did you notice the myriad? (Told you I’m on a roll but I did not want to insert this bracketed comment in an otherwise heartfelt statement).

Regards,

Fashion entrepreneur :-)