Edwin Okolo breaks down Titi Belo's LFDW 2016 showcase

The day 1 of the Heineken Lagos Fashion & Design Week 2016 opens up to rave reviews and Edwin Okolo, a fashion lover is writing in for Pulse. He starts off with a review of Titi Belo's presentation;

"Many would argue that showing on the first day of any fashion week is for the upstarts and less high profile designers, but the first day of the 2016 Lagos Fashion and Design Week clearly proved otherwise, Especially for Instituto Maragoni alumnus and 2014 LFDW Fashion Focus finalist Titi Belo and her eponymous label. For her, it was a chance to steal the show and set the tone for this year's fashion week.

In the three years since the label made the debut, it has done something we rarely see from young Nigerian designers, it has forgone wild experimentation and reinventions for a distinct house style.

Titi Belo has always known the kind of woman she wants to dress; a woman who embraces extravagance and tempers it with a measured sexiness, and the label's SS17 collection plays on these traits, updating the trumpet sleeves of its Spring 16 blouses into layered tubular sleeves. Daring necklines and peekaboo cutouts keep all the skin up top, balanced out with safer skirts and dress pants. She delves into formal wear territory with structured striped daysuits, gorgeous pinstriped dungarees tapered to perfection and a sleek black smoking jacket that paid homage to Slimane's YSL.

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Rounding out the collection with house favorites, Titi Belo offers new iterations of her now famous skater dresses and midi pencil skirts. She plays up sexiness with volume and texture through ruching and pleating and surprises us with her very first forays into formal evening wear with a demure maroon floor length gown, cinched at the waist, decolette on display.

What is truly impressive about the new collection, is just how easily it fits into the house style that has cultivated while distinctly being its own thing. Titi Belo's singular vision for her label is why so many young Nigerian women have fallen in love with the label and continue to wear it. For them Titi is reliable, and in a global fashion climate where uncertainty has become common place, a house style you can hedge your bets on is a beautiful thing to see."