NOTE: The publishing of this documentary, one person’s opinion and Western media’s view of Nigeria, does not mean we agree with all of the depictions or story telling about who Nigerians are, a nation made of 150million people. Nigeria’s fashion industry is comprised of numerous layers. Nigeria Fashion Week has been around for 14years and it is unfair to reduce Nigeria’s fashion movement to a slant that is only focused on gays in Nigeria’s fashion industry; per the headline and summaries sent to us.
(It plays on the Western stereotype that if you are gay, you must be in fashion. Homosexuals are not categorically reduced to fashion just because they are gays. Simply not true and inapplicable to Nigeria’s fashion industry. Also, it undermines and weakens the hard work of many in the industry (non-gays) and organizations that have worked hard to get the industry to where it is. “Gay Fashion Scene in Nigeria” with Nigeria Fashion Week serving as exhibit for that. Really?)
Other stereotypes of endowed Nigerian/black men and the 419 scammers depicted here, we simply disagree with. Nigeria’s fashion story is not a gay or 419 story. It is an economic story of the resilience and hard work of Nigerians (all Nigerians) who have worked hard to create the thriving and growing industry we have now. Enjoy the documentary but wear your objective hat.
-Uduak Oduok
Fashion Week Internationale (an original series from VICE Media devoted to traveling all across the globe to discover fashion weeks that you’ve probably never heard of before), travels to Lagos, Nigeria to uncover its annual Fashion Week, while also discovering the gay fashion scene in Nigeria.
“Nigeria is an endemically corrupt yet God-fearing nation, financially exploited by its mega rich pastors. It’s a nation on the cusp of outlawing homosexuality, but enforcing a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, with numerous celebrities in the public eye out-gaying anyone the US could throw at them. Nigerians earn on average less than $2 a day, despite the country’s industrial capital city Lagos being more expensive than Moscow, with an elite glitterati popping bottles to afrobeat all around Victoria Island.
Which brings us to Nigerian Fashion Week. When we visited, it was toting its eighth excursion as the “Going Green” Fashion Week, in one of the most polluted and congested cities in the world, where you have to add two hours onto any normal journey time to account for the horrendous traffic. It would be quicker to get out and walk, unless you’re a foreigner, aka free money beacon, for an array of scams and muggings you only have cough loud enough to attract.”
Founded in 2007, Ladybrille® Magazine is a California based pioneer digital publication demystifying the image of Africans in the west through contemporary African fashion and celebrating the brilliant woman in business and leadership, with an emphasis on the African woman in the diaspora. Our coverage includes stories on capital, access to markets, expertise, hiring and retention, sales, marketing, and promotions.
More than what everyone said, it was Lexy who fired the loudest dirty shot. No foreigner said those things that sounded like toilet-shafts, it was the Nigerians themselves. Nigerians that have polish live and operate amongst those that lack polish – kind of like African Salad, you know, mix it all together.
So inside the Rough Environment and Swampy Scrubby Residential Areas you find the emergence of Nigeria’s Most Beautiful Girls, Miss World, Nigerian Super Models, Top Athletes, Top Musicians, PhD’s etc.
It just so happened that the Producer of the Documentary (the Girl from VICE) has an African or Typical Nigerian sense of humor. That was why she could cope in some of those Slums, jump on bikes and wiggle her butts without landing in an ambulance etc.
People may criticize the video but most of the contents reflect the Nigerian reality – loud, unabashed, muscular, riotous, friendly, contradictory and comic – what Fela called Shuffering and Shmiling.
FADAN members and most people, including the Fashion Models who were captured half-nude, may not appreciate the portrayal of their privacy in Public. To me, this was wrong as they had granted no permission to be so portrayed. As for all the expressions of sexuality, they were all private. On the matter of being gay or Government legislating against it, Gay People don’t act openly this way. That is why they always take years to “COME OUT”. If a Nigerian is Gay, he will not hide it. If that is how we wish to be, then let’s carry on.
If we don’t like this Documentary, let’s do OUR OWN. But I would rather have preferred to hold my excrement within my stomach than throw it about the way some of these street boys and children did. Even our “professional colleagues” did, like Lexxy the CEO of Legendary Gold. Overall, it was a very down-to-earth reality show done by amateurs – just like Spike Lee’s first All-African American Movie that blazed the trail for all the Grammy Awards that came along later.
NTA is to blame to a large degree. They even made the Nigerian Fashion Week 2011 look very crappy when they aired it. If there were many Nigerians that have made half the effort that Legendary Gold has done, Nigeria would have gone farther than this crap documentary. The challenge is to FADAN, Nollywood and the Ministry of Tourism to fetch the Diamonds out of the Rough !!!! As we say in Nigeria, “out of the black pot comes the white pap”.
These comments are portrayed out of size,bloated but with some taste of truth