A triumvirate of vagrants by Tzar (And other weird weird shit that I don't like saying out loud, but it's cool)

Today I'm going to do something that I haven't done. I find fashion inspiring. It is so many things to me. I am not a designer, nor do I aspire to be one. I will make clothes but I'll make them for me. The thing is, no one knows better than me what I need, and I need these things. I need clothes that say sad, and I need clothes that say blue. I need clothes that scream movement, and I need clothes that give space. Sometimes I want to shrink into my shirts, so a slim fitted one won't do. It'll be a classic boxy cut that does nothing for my dimunitive form. It wom't be fashionable and that's alright. People were not made to be fashionable. I was a person before the fashion became the fashion. When my comfort, and what people consider to be good style clash, my comfort will always win. Today I chucked a burberry slim fitted shirt in my bag, and put on my American Apparel raincoat because the shirt wasn't made for people who binge on lunches. My food baby was too big for me to wear the shirt and feel like me. This paragraph has slipped into a pattern, so it must end. I'm trying to do something new here. I'm trying to disrupt the groove. When I put this blog out I don't want to be sure about it's goodness. I want to think about it and wonder what it was.

I saw the collection a while ago. No, I think you could say it saw me. Everything is art, and art speaks. There are words in the seams, just as there are words in sentences. The thing that makes the two of them the same is the feelings that lurk within them. There's the word happy, but anyone could write happy without it seeming happy. For happy to be happy, it'll need something more, something in the space between happy and the words that follow it. It's the same thing with music and drawing. I'm trying to describe things that have no words. I'm trying to describe things that do not need words. The words I use to describe them cheapen the emotions. Words are more clinical than a brush stroke, or a musical note, or a seam. Words form a wave. They gain traction, they build up momentum, and then they burst on you.

There aren't many here that understand that the clothes are meant to speak. They can scream, but mostly it's better when they speak. It's the same way you're not likely to listen to a man who screams at you. A man who screams when he could speak is a fool. He doesn't listen when he should.

I know Ian Audiferen, but I did not know this. His usual clothes are bright, and fruity. They're mostly prints, and for the most part they're overbearing. For several of them, there is nothing within me that they call to. There's a youth to them that I don't feel. I do not need to scream my difference. It is there regardless of what I do. I used to feel that this was criticism, but it isn't. I am Afam. I am that I am. I cannot apologise for that. I am nervous about this one now. This is good. If I am too confident in my work then I am complacent.

The press release was too much. I can scarcely read it without either rolling my eyes or frowning. You can tell that it's straight from the designers head. It is full of itself. It is not self aware.

This collection is birthed from a story of the lives of three misunderstood vagrants on a never ending journey into an abyss of complacency. Black and off white are the defining hues. Off white wool with herringbone stripes tell of a continuous wandering habit superimposed with unpretentious sheer voil.

Black matted wool opens a dark cauldron of unsurety juxtaposed with organza. Each Metal ring represents a triumvir of quirk, foible and vigour

I do not know what about voil is unpretentious, and I do not know what a dark cauldron of unsurety is. I will not go so far as to say that it is dishonest. I will say that it isn't fresh. It's been dressed up to the point that it is almost ridiculous, but I understand it. It is borne out of uncertainty. If I loved you and I wasn't scared, I would tell you that I loved you. I wouldn't tell you that your lips were as sweet as honey's milk or something silly like that. I would say it like it was. 

While the words that he uses to describe the clothes may be sketchy, that sketchiness does not extend to the clothes themselves. They are masterful. They are clean. They speak volumes without appearing to. 

The model used here is Wale Bello. Wale's skill lies not in being a good mannequin but in emoting. He manages to sync himself to the tone of the clothes he wears. This makes him more than just a body and a face. He understands that the work is greater than him. He reins himself in, and both he and the pieces shine as a result. The man portrayed looks like he has a story to tell, and I for one would like to hear it. 

I was amazed that no one picked up on the threes that occur. It's a literal representation of the collection's name, the triumvirate of vagrants. The threes are the three rings at the back of a few of the shirts, and they're by the neckline of some others. I will not say whether I like it or not. I will not say what I like about it. It is greater than me. When the work is this strong, you do not restrict it to the parameters of your taste, you seek to understand it. It is the strongest menswear that's come out of Lagos this year.