If anybody thought the Ghana@50 celebrations were over, it’s really not. Remember there is a long list of stuff to celebrate throughout the year, including the boring symposia and concerts that don’t kick. Maybe the shows didn’t have the right people managing them because the US ambassador, Pamela Bridgewater has just shown how exciting things can be by hosting a very intimate and classy art photography/fashion show featuring 30-year veteran photographer and painter Pavle Nikolich and Ghana’s new couture heavyweight, Araba Hackman. The show didn’t go beyond two hours so that made room for some networking and, of course, a little chick hunting.
As usual attendance was by invitation only and the press could photograph only certain portions of the house. Besides that, everything else was pretty well-structured. The event, titled ‘Places, Faces and Fashion’ had a not too huge crowd but it came out really good. Pavle’s unique collection of pictures said a lot about his African influences and tastes. His collection had more faces than places though.
“People know me as a painter so my photography has surprised many people”, he said. “But this is just a small collection of over four thousand images I’ve done over the years.”
Araba’s fashion show was the main the highlight of the night in every sense. The lawn in the ambassador’s yard had a big branded shack for a changing room and the grass wasn’t bad as a run way. The speaker boxes bumped soft Ghanaian folkloric songs over Hip-Hop beats as the models rolled out the shack and cat walked in tune. Some of the models had so much style and attitude it was hard not to applaud when they swaggered across the lawn.
The colored lights in the trees made for some great special effects when the models caught a beam in their strut. The outfits were just gorgeous and so were the models -- their figures were so ‘right’.
In keeping with designer Araba Hackman’s urbane signature, her runway program literally shone with gorgeous sparkly gowns, fit for any red carpet event. Trademark stuff for this designer are cut close to the body in sweeping African print fabric, silk satin crepe, and touches of frothy cotton to underscore a subtle train. Restrained gestures like geometric beading, topaz spaghetti straps and diamond-faceted bodice details spell “diva” on any stage. Amid all this high-decibel luxury, however, Araba Hackman always manages to bring a fresh and young look to here couture -- an essential ingredient for survival in Accra’s high stakes fashion game.
So, US ambassador, Pamela Bridgewater is not all about fighting drug trafficking on the west coast -- she has a thing for arts as well. That is supposed to be comforting.
