It's very true that what one person gains from a movie is not always exactly same as what the other gains from same movie...this I believe as agreed by few others is due to the fact that we are different, our thoughts, our sense of reasoning and articulation is totally based on several reasons such as; background, present status and opinion of life. But my question is why does the knowledge from one movie help another than the other? Why does that smart person often end seeming foolish and the foolish being 'brilliant' or 'favoured' ? I love movies- watching them and sometimes discussing them but the problem is I don't often share same opinion or say observations with other viewers, why is that I ask? Another disturbing question is why do movies affect us psychologically or not? Even those that think they aren't influenced by it fall victim of the likeness they share for their favourite movie, action, romantic, drama, thriller or whatever it may be... Just questions. What are your thoughts? #rambling
Lots of questions roving
in my head right now, some of which are;
At what point is
creativity self disposed?
To what extent
should a creative person – designer, go on to create design pieces for his/her
own label or otherwise?
Is there any balance
to re-creation of ideas including learnt, observed, researched and mostly
stolen idea? What clearly justices two design pieces created by
two distinct designers, is it patterns, cuts, aesthetics, fabric, theme, etc? Is it right for one designer to recreate
another's design or basically just copy the design?
These are few of the numerous questions that
have been wandering my mind for a while now which of course I've been killing for
lack of concrete evidence, but until recently when I saw Moofa's latest Spring/Summer
Collection – “Swan Addiction”, see full post on BellaNaija.
Full-sleeved bow-neck lace dress from
Moofa S/S '13 collection
While this is a
lovely collection of simple patterns and such, to some extent at first instance
the entire collection seemed out rightly same to me... the main issue being the
lack of ingenuity; what exactly speaks exquisite, outstanding, unusual, about
this collection, what in this collection as well as the past collections
clearly speaks "Moofa". What's the Moofa brand, who's the Moofa woman
what is representative of the Moofa woman in this particular collection as well
as previous.
Which then leads to
the point of this discuss/ rambling/ debate/research or whatever you prefer to
call it ... does lack of self definition, standard, creativity make designers -
especially Nigerian, African designers copy other notable ones or is it just re-creating
now? As they put it, no idea is fresh, it's a recreation of another, while I
quite agree(to some degree) with this, I beg to defer in this case as regards
few designs from Moofa's latest collection- specifically this lace,
full-sleeved, over-the-knee, crow-neck dress.
I should say that this is a charming
dress that shows class, elegance and will definitely pass for any A-class
occasion but when it's clearly a stolen ...or perhaps if you prefer - borrowed
idea it becomes an embarrassment both to the designer and our design and fashion
industry which seems to be accepting just anybody - any raw, coarse, amateur,
in experienced person that believes so much that he/she knows (Note: not
understand) fashion and can put down some sketches on paper all probably
gathered after several hours & days of watching Fashion TV, Style Network
and browsing through Style.com and the likes.
Full-sleeved lace dress from D&G
Fall 2010 collection
This is no cue to disregard the amount of effort
that's been invested into building a brand and creating clothes in a tricky
economy but as much as creating clothes that meet international standard is
concerned, it doesn't mean making an exact duplicate of a top brand’s, (like
Dolce & Gabbana) piece .....Common! It's despicable.
A careful look at
each design shows few differences though but not acceptable, the percentage of
similarity between this two pieces is 99.9% accurate…let’s see.
Fabric – exact same
Silhouette – exact
same
Cut – not exactly
same; Moofa endeavoured to add a bow to the neckline – this I do not support
because considering the dress already has a crow-neck (which is really classy
on its own) just like D & G’s why add a bow? Well, clearly Moofa tried –
failingly though, to create a little difference from the Dolce & Gabbana
piece ….obvious truth? It’s a total fail.
Theme - While Moofa
calls it “Swan Addiction”, which isn't clear yet as I haven’t found any review
online to clearly explain the idea/theme behind it, D & G however calls the collection "Sartorialita, Sicilianita, Sensualita"(in celebration of their 25th anniversary) a theme that perfectly illustrates the brand's symbol of Italian sophistication and style. More about the collection here
Under layer – It’s
obvious the choice of under layers used by each designer is different also but
still makes a good look-like.
Marion Cortillad in D&G Fall 10 lace dress
for US Vogue July 2010
On another hand,
this clearly explains why most Nigerian fashion designers cannot explain
details of a collection, beyond just inspiration of course which most times don’t
quite follow too.
This is an observation that I believe calls for caution, correction, reprove, etc. One, two more pieces from this collection come off quite similar with few designer brands in Nigeria .... but one step at a time.
Photos via Millionlooks , BellaNaija and Vogue.com
