Colour does much of the talking in Orange Culture’s Spring/Summer 2023 collection, but it is the relationship between garments that allows that colour to become a coherent visual statement. Brilliant pink, cobalt blue, burnt orange and softer neutrals move across relaxed tailoring, cropped pieces and fluid silhouettes. For Temitope Victoria Abraham, working as a Fashion […]
4 years ago
Colour does much of the talking in Orange Culture’s Spring/Summer 2023 collection, but it is the relationship between garments that allows that colour to become a coherent visual statement. Brilliant pink, cobalt blue, burnt orange and softer neutrals move across relaxed tailoring, cropped pieces and fluid silhouettes. For Temitope Victoria Abraham, working as a Fashion Stylist Assistant placed her within the process of bringing these individual elements together as a complete fashion image.
Created under Adebayo Oke-Lawal’s direction, Orange Culture’s SS23 collection explored the optimism and imagination associated with childhood dreams. Rather than approaching nostalgia as something sentimental, the collection translated youthful curiosity into expressive contemporary clothing. Seventies-inspired tailoring appeared alongside flowing dresses, cropped woven pieces, relaxed trousers and vibrant prints, continuing Orange Culture’s long-standing challenge to conventional distinctions between masculine and feminine dress.
That makes styling particularly important. Orange Culture’s clothes often depend upon unexpected relationships. A structured jacket can sit against a softer silhouette; an assertive colour can be balanced by something quieter; proportions that might appear exaggerated individually become convincing when the entire look is considered. Styling therefore becomes less about adding decoration and more about establishing hierarchy, deciding what should command attention and what should support it.
Abraham’s contribution as a Fashion Stylist Assistant existed within this collaborative process. Working under an established creative and styling direction requires a particular kind of discipline. The objective is not to impose an independent aesthetic, but to understand the collection sufficiently well to help preserve its visual language as garments are coordinated and prepared for presentation.
The collection’s use of colour makes this responsibility especially interesting. Pink, orange, blue and lavender appear with considerable confidence, yet the effect does not depend on colour alone. Silhouette provides balance. Relaxed trousers create movement beneath shorter or more fitted upper garments, while flowing pieces soften the authority traditionally associated with tailoring. These combinations allow the collection’s ideas about freedom and self-expression to become visible through the body.
Styling also determines how clearly those ideas survive the transition from individual garment to complete look. A runway audience rarely encounters a jacket, trouser or accessory in isolation. It encounters an assembled image. Proportion, layering and garment coordination influence where the eye travels and ultimately how the collection is understood.
For Abraham, assisting within that process provided practical exposure to fashion as visual storytelling. It required attention not simply to whether individual pieces looked attractive, but to whether they belonged together and remained faithful to Orange Culture’s wider identity. This is especially relevant within a label whose work consistently uses clothing to question rigid expectations around gender and personal expression.
The experience therefore reveals an important foundation in Temitope Victoria Abraham’s developing styling practice. Her contribution sat within the detailed work required to transform separate garments into a coherent presentation. Orange Culture’s SS23 collection offered a demanding environment in which to develop that instinct, combining assertive colour, fluid proportion and unconventional styling relationships. What emerges is a stylist learning one of the profession’s most important lessons: the strongest fashion image is rarely created by a single piece. It comes from understanding how every element speaks to the others.
