Modern Natured — luxury fashion and beauty brand from Ghana displayed its debut fashion line, ‘The Genesis Collection’ at the recent Paris Fashion Week (PFW) 2022 at La Galerie Bourbon, Paris.
Its display went alongside over forty global fashion powerhouses at the September/October edition. The fashion week is held in Paris twice a year.
Modern Natured began as a beauty business and evolved overtime into a luxury fashion label. It combines traditional African beading techniques and futuristic patterns to create an “innovative beaded couture.”
The brand’s handmade beaded clothes and jewellery are produced from a variety jewels and recycled glass beads. For its ready to wear hoods, it combines a mix of vibrant kente fabrics.
Modern Natured also retails a curated collection of cosmetics, fragrance, skincare, haircare, and aromatherapy in addition to custom branded luxury collection of couture, skin, body, and hair care products.
The brand has been featured in top fashion magazines like Vanity Fair, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, L’Officiel, Amica Italia, Woman Espana and Madama Le Figara.
The Paris dazzle
Emma travelled to Miami Swim Week 2022 as an accessory designer in July and worked with several swimsuit brands to improve their designs by giving their models Modern Natured’s waist beads.
She had her waist beads collection on runway models representing brands like Kanawa, Zoelle BYBS, Meredith Ashley, Cyar, Peach Plie, Audrey Monae, Cordee Cases, Surturban, Michael Bailey, Hott Commodity Eyewear, and Ash Hoffman.
Months later, Modern Natured received a nick of time invite to the Paris Fashion Week 2022, and only had a short interval to have its Spring/Summer 2023 Couture ready for unveiling.
“Getting all that done in an incredibly little time was overwhelming, but who would say no to a Paris runway, so we got to work, it had to be ready in eight days” said Emma Okyere, American-based fashion designer and founder of Modern Natured, to Theafricandream.net.
Within that time, The Genesis Collection was produced.
Nine looks of their inventive beaded couture, woven kente cropped hoodies, exquisite glass neckpieces, and leather fringes on a wooden collar made up the collection.
Handmade Modern Natured’s Beaded Couture used recycled glass beads and a variety of Ghanaian jewels to create stunning apparel and jewellery.
To complete the outfits, Modern Natured worked with Material Maya, Desert Jewelry, Hautelifeworld Eyewear, and Dante Shoes.
Made in Ghana
When the chance to exhibit at the Paris Fashion Week 2022 was offered to Modern Natured, Emma took a next flight to Ghana to exploit the milestone. She had a limited time to plan, design, and complete her fashion collection; it made every second precious.
“The first place I thought about was home when we got the opportunity. I wanted to project an African pride through my fashion in a surreal, captivating way, and I couldn’t find any better option than to settle for a made in Ghana,” Emma disclosed to Theafricandream.net.
To help her realise her designs, Emma employed local beadworkers and they collectively went through most of her ideas. She worked with Krobo’s Cedi Beads, Kente weavers, leather suppliers, and tailors.
She also embroidered and debossed the company’s logo in collaboration with InkIt Ghana Limited.
The level of imagination and talents that the local Ghanaian artisans possess have always piqued her interest.
“Ghana is very rich in culture and traditions. It’s not a coincidence that I started working with local Ghanaian artisans to fuse cultural traditional beads with my innovative, futuristic beading concepts and methods. It was by God’s divine intention. God exposed and allowed Modern Natured to exist in fashion to bring Ghana to the front of high fashion,” said Emma to Theafricandream.net
In her experience, Emma stated that the “Ghanaian economy has been practising sustainability for years through a variety of projects,” one of which is the creation of exquisite glass beaded jewellery using recycled glass.
Written by Arakunrin Lekan for Theafricandream.net
Abeeb Lekan Sodiq is a Managing Editor & Writer at theafricandream.net. He is as well a Graphics Designer and also known as Arakunrin Lekan.
