Fashion week holds a special place in my heart. I shot fashion week as a street style and back stage photographer for 2 seasons in a row before I hung up my camera to focus on my blogger life. You can read my blog post on my first time shooting street style at fashion week here. This year attending fashion week was a tough choice because I wanted to spend some quality time with my family, it’s increasingly difficult with conflicting schedules to get us all in the same place at the same time. I decided a week before that I would indeed attend to get some inspiration for up and coming projects that I am looking at starting soon.
So there I was flicking through the internet, searching, perusing and refreshing every single street style photographers’ Instagram page to get some inspiration on outfits to wear for the gruelling 4 days ahead. To my utter amazement *insert shock horror emoji*, I HAD NOTHING TO WEAR! I went into panic mode, questions running through my head ‘what online stores do next day delivery? what is my budget? (forget about eating for now, that is not your priority), and how far am I willing to take these outfits?
I was up till 1am in the morning staring at my wardrobe like an unfaithful partner -getting the silent treatment instead of a full blown ninja cat face scratch and eye gorging combo. I let out a deep sigh and drank a bottle of cider (which felt like gin at the time) before retreating to bed. That same night I kid you not, I dreamt of a yellow bag, it was small and boxy and cute with a long handle dangling down one side, I was being photographed by what seemed like a thousand photographers from all angles then I woke up and typed into google ‘yellow boxy bag’ to remind me of the dream before I went back to bed. I know what you are thinking ‘she is hard core’, Well, let’s just agree that this has happened to me many times before and I am not phased anymore by vivid dreams of my inner spirit fashion animal. A Nigerian parent would probably respond the narration of your dream with ‘If only you took your books as seriously as you take your outfits… *rolls eyes*’. I woke up with a feeling of contentment and I had no explanation why as I had forgotten my dream completely as you do 9 out of 10 times unless it is a dream of someone gifting you a Chanel Metallic Caviar chevron Quilted in silver (Subliminal messages…did it work? My Birthday is in December by the way).
On my way to work, I opened my browser and I saw ‘Yellow boxy bag’ in the search window and it all came flooding back to me. I felt elated and to my surprise, that high lasted a good 2 minutes and 41 seconds before I realised ‘What the hell am I supposed to do with a tiny useless yellow box bag for all 5 days of fashion week’, I was back to square one, cold sweats, palpitations, blood shot eyes and now pulling my sweater away from my neck to allow some fresh breeze to hit my burning neck, It was a sight that any zombie would see and be proud to call me their own.
Phase two, I began to try harder to remember the outfit in my dream, God didn’t bring me this far to let me go now, there must have been something to hold on to, something to remember, NOTHING. All I remember was that crazy yellow bag that was now stalking my memory like a useless rap song with a catchy chorus. So I went back to the internet (whatever did we do before the internet, I do not know). Four hours and half of my working day later I decided on some strategies
1. I was NOT under any circumstances buying anything new. I have two wardrobes and a room full of clothes; I will make it work out for me. This was a hard but the most important decisions I made so far because it forced me to use my existing wardrobe reducing the risk of over trying to be like somebody else. My existing wardrobe are pieces I love and I can surely make it work for my good.
2. I wanted to challenge myself a bit and being the queen of colour, I decided to go monochrome for the entire fashion week. For every colourful outfit that was posted on the gram from New York fashion week, a bit of my inner colour child faded with disdain at my utter betrayal of self and style. A challenge issn’t meant to be easy right? So I stuck to my Monochrome!
3. Lastly I wanted to make a social statement with at least one of the outfits and did so with my show of support to the Nike ‘Just do it’ campaign and my baby gurl Serena. I did that with my Day 1 and day 3 outfits successfully and made sure I told every photographer my exact intention so that it was put in the caption. Spread the word.
4. The stage was set and I was ready to go, not before I put on my flats or kitten heels to eliminate the risk of falling on my face in front of the thousands of photographers I saw in my dream (I guess that was the message after all, darn you yellow boxy bag).
We were off. See below for outfits and how I put them together. It was a great week and I look forward to.
Skirt Asos here or here Blazer similar here Boots Primark similar here
Gingham coat here or splurge here
Stripe suit similar here or here
Earings @byopaleye (Instagram)
Nike top here
Wide leg trousers here
Blazer here
Shorts here
Boots similar here
Sunglasses here
Until next time buttercups. See you in Milan.