THE ART OF MAKING A FASHIONABLE STATEMENT

When you look at a piece from Arivee, you can immediately sense the brand’s devotion to elegance. The brand, founded by Nigerian designer Chimdalu Victoria Arinze, upholds a vision for merging sophisticated and accessible fashion.

Their mission as a brand is to create designs that celebrate women of all shapes and sizes while inspiring confidence and individuality. They claim to have perfect tailoring with clean lines and movement-friendly designs.

Well, with this ethos in mind, let’s take a look at this year’s collection and verify if indeed their fashion transcends clothing and is more of a statement.

This outfit is unique in style and structure. Also, barely looking at it, you can already tell a lot is going on here. To begin, let’s look at the obvious eye-catching piece, the top.

The top is structured like a jacket, with massive, deep green collars, side panels, and giant turquoise-coloured cuffs on the wrist. The top itself is made from the popular organza fabric, and organza is known for reflecting light, which plays a role too in this outfit. It’s easy to see the intentionality that follows this design in the aspect of fabric characteristics. The reflective nature of the top allows for plain chiffon pants, keeping it simple below.

This outfit isn’t quite hitting the mark, though, as several tweaks and edits are needed to improve both its aesthetics and functionality.

One of the main adjustments that would help this outfit is in its structure. The top is creative, but too long and slim, almost reaching the knees in fact. This already creates a clash with the floor-length pants. And in this case, the silhouette appears disproportionate. To manage this, a shorter or, for a more stylish look, a cropped jacket structure would balance things better. With this, the pants get to breathe, and the outfit appears more flattering and proportional.

Another concern here is the use of excessive detail and colour blocking. The outfit already carries oversized collars, now paired with the giant cuffs, that’s just too much. And let’s not forget to mention the turquoise colour that doesn’t even tie into the rest of the outfit, creating unnecessary noise.

Reducing the cuffs in volume could work, or even better, reworking them in the same green shade as the rest of the piece. This helps maintain harmony without losing the statement factor. Doing this, the design gets to appear more intentional and less experimental.

Lastly, the pants themselves need structural improvement. If the designer intended them to be baggy, then the tailoring should have been sharper. This would allow them to fall straight, rather than looking uncontrolled, as they appear to in the image. You see, a wide-leg pant with crisp finishing would have complemented the organza better.

Anyway, with these few points of ours, we believe a refined tailoring and a better approach to the design process would help the outfit transition properly into a stylish statement.

This co-ord set features a straight-cut palazzo pant and a kimono jacket in green. The green colour serves as the base or background colour, but the accent colours, which are light and dark brown, provide the highlight.

On the jacket, the accent colours go around the side panel, the hem, and the sleeve. The pocket, located just below the bodice, also features the accent colour. Besides that, the dress jacket rocks the lush green that further amplifies the colour of the brown. So, simply speaking, the colours green and brown go together.

The jacket is designed to flow freely, with elbow-length unrestricted sleeves and a wide structure that allows for ease of movement. Also, as with jackets of this nature, the chest is exposed, allowing for a third wheel, which in this case is a plain black blouse.

Paired with the pants, it balances the drama happening up top. Even with the ruffle detail at the sides, it doesn’t measure up to the many activities and accent colour appearance in the jacket. So, for that, it is quite coordinated.

The length of the pants is also something to give accolades to, with how it flows from the high waist all the way to the ground, covering the feet. That alone adds to the outfit’s luxe appearance and aesthetic.

Now, following the reviews and comments on the features and details, there are also a few improvements that could be made to several aspects of the dress, one of which involves the jacket’s structure.

While the wide kimono cut gives it that free and flowing feel, it also risks swallowing the figure. As was stated earlier, the accent colours already bring enough drama, so the silhouette doesn’t need to be this loose. Including some other detail, like a belt, could tie the matching fabrics together better. Doing this would still maintain the flowy vibe, but at least add some shape. That way, the person wearing it wouldn’t get lost under all that fabric, and the brown accents would frame the body better.

Another area that could be refined is the ruffle detail on the pants. Don’t get us wrong, it’s totally fun. But could it be a little too fun? We believe taking it out entirely and leaving the pants to bask in its plainness would be a much better match to the dramatic jacket. The green-and-brown combo already makes a statement, so simplifying one part of the outfit would balance the drama and elevate the whole set.

This co-ord set seems interesting as it appears quite formal but casual at the same time. The colour combination works well here, the sky-blue top and dark green pants are a great match as they have been used thoughtfully.

Starting with the top, it is a cropped, shirt-like design with long sleeves that end with a cuff at the wrist. On the bodice, which is technically the only front part of a crop top, there are four flaps arranged in an orderly manner: two on the left side and the other two on the right side.
These flaps, though, are quite intentional details as they give the illusion of pockets, which are only present on the pants.

Speaking of pants, this one is just simple, with nothing much going on. Starting at the high-waist area, the wide-legged pants flow down in a straight cut all the way to the ground. The solid, deep green gives it a bold demeanour. And the only detail present, which is very necessary, are the pockets, as stated earlier; not only do they add to the aesthetics, they are also functional.

Now, even though this co-ord set has promise, the pieces feel like they’re missing something. We’ve already established that the colours complement each other well; however, the styling makes the pieces themselves appear like they were pulled from two different outfits. There is no uniformity in them. The shirt feels too formal with flaps, and the trouser just falls plain, looking baggy too. This disconnection dilutes the strength of the look.

To harmonise them, the designer should consider including a touch of green, like that of the pants, into the shirt. Adding this simple detail to strategic places, like perhaps the buttons or the panels, would make them look more like an intentional set as intended.

Similarly, the shirt design could use some refinement. The four flaps on the front are creative, yes, but they end up making the shirt look almost military-inspired, and this isn’t the casual-formal balance the outfit is aiming for; is it? To make this better, we would suggest reducing the flaps to two or even just one. This minimal accent would soften the appearance and still retain a unique design detail.

Altogether, this outfit has strong potential; all it needs is cohesion. So, once the shirt and pants are tied together with a shared detail, the co-ord would achieve an elegant balance.

Conclusively, this collection definitely has great potential. The creativity displayed in each outfit is vibrant with unique perspectives. However, there is still a lot to be done to take it from good to better. The designers need to pay more attention to details such as blending styles together with a smoother delivery that not only captures artistic depth, but also sets trends that last in the fashion industry.

Omolade Abisola