Afric Collection

The highly anticipated fashion festival in Douala, Afric Collection, is finally here. This event has become a fashion ritual in Cameroon with all upcoming designers rushing to get a place for the show. It is organized every February with the intention of promoting African culture.

Whether its sexy, trendy, classy or funky, every young designer is venturing to portray their version of African culture blended with their personal style, and you can only imagine how vibrant and exciting the atmosphere is. The Afric Collection festival is truly an exotic display of the beauty of African fashion and culture.

Some however are not here to display or to be known, but are here for inspiration from fashion students who come up with fresh and unique ideas for the show.

Maison d'Afie will be keeping you informed as the days go by with all the latest pictures and fashion gossips so follow on.

Ashu Weds Senge...the background work

Planning a wedding? Easier said than done!

I felt very honoured when my childhood friend Senge decided to use Maison d’Afie to design and create all her friends of the bride clothes. Initially I had very ambitious ideas of parading the girls in the most outrageous looks and of course showing up in the most fascinating dress but after spending oodles of my precious time in the market and in the sewing room, I realized a lot of the plans I had for the wedding were unrealistic given the time I had to prepare and Ialso had to remind myself that this wasn’t my day and my focus really had to be on making the ladies look pretty and dressed. Yes simply dressed.

The more time I allowed my creative juices to flow, the better I got at it though I changed my mind about designs and accessorizing fabrics every other day. It was a tough task but I have to tell you it was enjoyable and I’d do it all over again.

I’ts always easy when you know who you are designing for and when everyone of them is really cooperative and understanding but on the downside, you get asked to make last minute alterations that impinge into your delivery schedule.

For those of you who know Senge, you’d admit with me that she is one girl who’s always known what she wants and stands her ground. She is very understanding but does not compromise on her standards and I had to meet up to this. Imagine how much pressure this put me under…Frida was absolutely adorable running errands with me, sending text messages when I was too stressed up to even think and just being encouraging and supportive.

In the end we conquered fear, anticipation, anxiety and delivered. I am glad the designs matched the theme of the wedding and most especially that the bride was pleased with the work.

We are now open to more orders for 2010/2011. We will be accepting 10 weddings this year and we are already at 4. Once we hit our target for the year we will no longer accept to do any other weddings. Every bride has a dream wedding and we want to make this dream come true so we give you this lone chance to boss us around unless if you need expert in house style counseling for your friends and family. We may choose fabrics for you if you do not have your own fabrics but we strongly recommend you use our designs as it gets really tricky when trying to design someone else’s idea.

Hope to hear from you on the website or on Facebook.

www.maisondafie.com