00:00Hello everyone. Welcome to Mercedes Men's Fashion Week Spring 2012. You are hanging out with Essence.com at Front Row Backstage. We're at the Arise Designer Collective Fashion Show. So excited. I am T.O. Williams, your beauty editor. This is Anna Lae Blais, your fashion editor, and we're going to go check out backstage. Come with us.
00:30This collection especially is called Vintage Love and it goes back to old Nigeria. It celebrates my love for Nigeria in the 50s and the 60s.
00:59If you talk about African-American women, I hope that they can relate because we're bringing a bit of Africa into this and I think that all women world over should just love the pieces because they're made for women. They're made to celebrate women.
01:12So I'm just hoping that every woman, African, whoever, would love it. I'm sure it's going to be a successful show. I hope people would love the pieces and I think it will just be joy walking on the stage and just feeling rewarded.
01:25It's a bridge from day to evening. There's a mixture of colours, the African blend with the Western culture.
01:37And I've used butterfly prints, which has got bold, edgy colours with a blend of lace, which is like a signature look for me.
01:44And I also have separate pieces, a use of tweed and lace, like what I'm wearing now is in the collection.
01:51So it's a blend. I think the elderly woman is a young Jackie Onassis, so edgy, confident, classy woman. So I'm looking forward to it.
02:00It's very, very elaborate and looks like there was a lot of time taken into it. Is that what happened?
02:05Oh, most definitely. There's a little aunt's teaching in my collection. It takes a lot of time, like an outfit could take about 100 to 300 hours.
02:13Dresses that are very timeless, but also very now. We also want to be very, very relevant to fashion now. What's happening now?
02:26But then we still want the dress to be beautiful enough that in five years' time, the girl will still want to wear it.
02:30Well, I mean, we design everything with a very easy feel. We have a lot of silks and things, but I think it's more about the girl.
02:40You just pick the dress up, wear it with flats, no makeup, to work, maybe. And then you would wear the same dress with heels and a cool bag for a night, you know.
02:49So it's like a kind of night-to-day thing. It's really fashion. We obviously have some very dramatic evening pieces, which, you know, we have to do because I love doing those pieces.
02:58Eight different designers, all African. This was the place to be. It was gorgeous. The makeup was pretty standard, but it was stunning.
03:07It was just a winged, smoky eye and major, major brows. Basically, the statement for spring 2012.
03:14Each of the eight designers served you one thing. Are you ready? Extravaganza.
03:20Because the kids were so dramatic. Now, they were all African designers, mostly from Nigeria and from South Africa.
03:26It's really added to an old-school drama and theme that we haven't seen in New York in a really long time.
03:32Exactly. It was gorgeous. And as a woman from Ghana, what are your thoughts? Are you so proud at this moment?
03:37You know what? Honestly, I can think of two times that I've cried over clothing, and I think that this was one of them.
03:44Oh, my God.
03:44It was absolutely beautiful because, as we know, working at Essence is such a privilege because we get to see so many strong, beautiful sisters.
03:51But outside of those halls, you don't really see too many people like us, and you certainly don't see it during Fashion Week.
03:57So to sort of come here and be wrapped and enveloped in just a cocoon of beauty and Africaness and blackness, to see African Americans and Africans just sort of unite over style, was really beautiful and really the stuff that dreams are made of.
04:09You know, I love a girl that can really know her, knows her way around a soundbite.
04:13Like, that was really, really deep, and it really took me there. I feel it.
04:18Anyway, guys, thank you so much for hanging out with us.
04:20The Arise show was completely inspirational and aspirational and lovely, and we loved it, and we hope you love it, too.
04:25Thank you so much for hanging out with us. We'll see you next time. Bye.
04:28Bye.
04:28Bye.
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