The Clothes Have to Give Me a Reason to Stay

Lagos Fashion Week opens today at the Federal Palace Hotel and runs until 1 November, and within hours the week will exist mostly as photographs. A photograph shows the silhouette and the mood and leaves out the cut and the fabric, which are the first things Jahn Affah looks at. As a stylist and fashion editor who judges a collection by how the clothes feel and behave as much as how they look, his views on restraint and on the Lagos designers to watch are worth having before the week's images fill your feed. Jahn Affah How do you tell a strong collection from a well-photographed one? I think good imagery can make almost anything look interesting, which is why I always come back to the clothes themselves. Does the design hold up when you take away the casting, the lighting, the styling and the entire production around it? Is there enough thought in the cut, the fabric and the construction to make you want to look at the garment beyond the initial image? For me, tailoring is a big part of it. So is knowing when to stop. A designer doesn’t have to give me the most elaborate piece in the room to get my attention. Sometimes it’s the restraint, the proportion, or the way a fabric has been handled that makes a garment really good. You can have a beautiful campaign and still have very little to say through the clothes. The image might get my attention, but the clothes have to give me a reason to stay. What does a reader miss when they judge a collection from images alone? A photograph can only do so much. It can capture a silhouette or communicate a mood, but it can never quite replicate the experience of being in a room with the clothes, touching the fabrics and examining the construction. I experienced this firsthand when I visited Tokyo James’s studio. You can look at a photograph of a garment and appreciate the image, but seeing the quality of the feathers, the intricacy of the lace and the precision of the tailoring up close is a completely different experience. You begin to understand the material choices, the labour and the decisions that went into making the piece. Tokyo James F/W '25 Collection, Styled by Jahn Affah As a stylist, I’m interested in how clothes a…