Former actor and fashion designer who bestrode the Nigerian fashion scene like a colossus back in the day, Ekuriese Akamune, aka Kese Jabari, has sent shivers down the spines of his Nigerian competitors with the news of his return after many years of sojourn in the United States.
Having seen how well the industry has blossomed, with designers competing with their foreign counterparts on the international stage, Kese plans to regain his pride of place. To this end, he is already working on two major collections that he hopes will relaunch him to the scene.
The first collection which is self-named is called Kese Jabari by Mon Ami. It will be a collaboration between him and another veteran male designer, Larry Kay Okomo aka Mon Ami. The second collection, a tribute to late Fela Anikulapo will be called ‘Kabiyesi – The King Who Cannot Be Questioned’ by Kese Jabari.
For Kese, venturing into the fashion industry was a natural inclination as he had taken courses in costume design in theatre school, took a crash apprenticeship program with a road-side master tailor, consulted with fashion designers during his stint with Silverbird Group owned by Ben Murray Bruce.
Although Kese sees his exit from the scene in the early 1990s as manure for the growth of the fashion industry, hopefully he doesn’t think that being a veteran is all that is needed to relaunch him, what with the competitive nature of the latest crop of fashion designers strutting the fashion space.
Ivory Ukonu is a versatile journalist with many years of experience, with entertainment and society reporting as her area of core competence.
