The on-going Bimpe Adebambo’s exhibition and fashion show at the Goethe Institut, Victoria Island, Lagos is unique in form and concept. From the graceful models with charming outfits and beautiful accessories to video clips of catwalk models of some of the exhibits and music, the opening ceremony attracted people from all walks of life.

With the theme, Beampeh: Style, Fun, Identity, Five Years of Following A Fashion Vision, the exhibition of female attires equally made a major statement of fashion and creativity.

Being the artist’s showcase of experiences gathered in the past five years, it was breathtaking for everyone in attendance to travel with the artist in her world of creativity, using human body and materials as medium. Tall models of over six feet height stood at strategic positions in the exhibition hall like statures modeling the exhibits.

Aside from live models, there were beautiful portraits of models in specially made necklaces, clothes, or hairstyles etc which the artist has placed side by side with matching, colourful backgrounds. The models, beads, accessories, portraits all made statements on the harmony between the material and the wearer.

Some of the portraits include, Printed Matter, Smooth Sailing, Skittled Vertebrae, Nude Woman Clutch, Purple Reign, Jungle Book, Indigomania, Tell Freedom, Baby Blues, Jumbo Millefiori and Earth Song.
In Printed Matter, modeled by Yinka, a floral batik is used to produce the female gown. The wearer stands side by side with a flower background thereby bringing out the beauty of the clothe. This also goes to portray that most designs are naturally made from flower pattern.

Smooth Sailing modeled by same Yinka is a blouse with free sleeves. The bodice has square designs and is placed against the background of interlocking stones.
In Skittled Vertebrae, a necklace highlights the shape of a human or animal segmented spinal column. A model called Talatu wears the necklace.
Jungle Book, as the name implies is about the opening and closing of eyelashes. Like a book, the beholder could easily read the eye.
Multifacetted artist, Adebambo, is an art graduate from the Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH), Lagos.

She is not just a painter but a fashion designer and maker of accessories and jewelries with the fashion label simply called, Beampeh.
Adebambo started her first foray into fashion in her Economics class in primary school where she, alongside other pupils, were taught how to make apron, little clothes and many other objects of craft.
As a result of her experience at school, she got so enthusiastic at age seven and thereafter began her creative journey.

Her words, “I attacked my father’s Soro (tunic), deconstructed it and reconstructed it into a nice play dress for myself which I made entirely by hand with the back stitch I had just learnt in school. I was praised for my ingenuity because my father was done with the tonic and growing up we were always taught to recycle.”

The artist/fashion designer, who is also from a lineage of creative and enterprising women disclosed, “My great grand mother strung beads and sold kola nuts, my grandmother was a textile trader and made extraordinary hand knitted clothes at the cradle of the Yoruba race, Ile-Ife. My mother is an author, a designer of games for children and teenagers. She made clothes and dyed fabrics for the soft furnishings.”

Practicing fashion is just an extension of Adebambo’s creativity, which gives her happiness. “I love my work to be stylish, make the wearer happy and of course show that it is made with an African spirit with a lot of love,” she boasted.
Adebambo’s major interest is for a woman to be smartly dressed. She is therefore out to project beauty, charm and modesty of women especially, the African woman.

In the words of Roderick Gross, Director of Goethe-Institut, Lagos, the exhibition marked a new beginning in the institute’s commitment to the visual arts as it combined the first fashion show and exhibition to be held at the German Cultural Centre since almost 10 years. He added that the exhibition aimed at a broad female target group of between 12 and 70 years and would always remain true to its Nigerian origin as well as to modern international standard.

Gross noted that Adebambo’s passion for fashion and music has led her to dress some starlets in the industry. “She outfitted Omawumi Magbele of West African Idol fame for “I Don’t Wanna Wait In vain” performance.

In his own comment, Olu Ajayi, former Chairman of the Society of Nigeran Artists (SNA), Lagos Chapter, noted that modern fashion has gone beyond needle, stitches and thread and designers are in a continuous research and creatively inject their costumes with variants from the bizarre to outright revealing and to the wearable.

Ajayi said Adebambo’s designs from clothes to accessories show a deliberate combination of elements and materials that produce a balanced composition thus making her work a wearable work of art.
“In totality, some of her collections transcend trends as they are independent of influences of popular culture of the times for example, her elegant dress made from ankara with a consideration for patterns has a focal point when it is worn,” he stated.

The popular painter further said that the presentation of Adebambo’s works would serve collectors an opportunity to see art wearable and collectable just as precious as any other form of art.