By Rita Okoye

Haute Couture is well-known for releasing collections that are reminiscent of culture and heritage but their latest collection, The Olaedo Collection, is a merger of culture, high fashion, beauty and elegance.

The Olaedo collection was recently unveiled at a private event in Ibadan, Oyo state.
The Olaedo collection showcases gowns made from Ankara, lace, satin and Illusion mesh in different colors and designs that infuse corsets, boning and so many other fashion designing terms.

One of the dresses is a short red print Ankara fabric with corset, it has a v-neck with a sheer lace fabric used as a cover for the upper part of the breast so as to give the illusion of an exposure of the skin.

The dress also has a one-shoulder sleeve where one sleeve is absent while the other is slightly puffy and curved from front of the arm to the back of the arm.

The corset on the dresses in this collection are often quite subtle that one may argue the existence of a corset.

Some of the dresses in the collection do not have corset and this adds to the aesthetic of the entire collection.

The boning method was used to make corsets for a few of the dresses while some of the dresses (with or without corsets) used boning to achieve a firm structure on some of the other designs that were included on the dress such as loops of the same fabrics on a specific dress.

The gowns are short and seemed to be made for thick ladies.
The dresses in the Olaedo collection are available in multi-colors that are either mixed in tones of red, brown, green, blue and yellow.

This means that each dress has more than a color on and thus can be paired with jewelries and other fashion essentials of the wearer’s choice. Some of these dresses do not require extravagant jewelries as they can be worn just as they were made.

The duo of Haute Couture’s Creative Director and Designer, Okoroha MacDonald and Okoroha Chinenye credited the inspiration of the collection to their Igbo roots and how elegantly adorned the women often were at parties.

Chinenye explained that the names, events and even some of the village acts are beautifully named to remind one of the colorful aspects of nature and that she got the inspiration from one of her cousin’s wedding.

The Creative Director, MacDonald stated that they both had to work hand in hand to create the beautiful pieces that are seen in this collection and that they are glad that the attendees at their event enjoyed the designs as much as they enjoyed creating these beautiful pieces.

They both used their skills at Pattern making, garment construction, Sewing and tailoring to make these unique high fashion pieces that are true to the meaning of their brand.