Design Is… With Diana Opoti

Over the past few weeks, UP Magazine has had the opportunity to interview experts that use design-centric approaches to providing solutions to issues that we experience in Nairobi today. These designers, like the swiss more than half a century before them, are striving to create a vernacular language that will disrupt accepted norms and conventions and redefine the way we interact with each other.

In preparation for our Design by Disruption Awards event taking place next week, we shall have a short series, to let you, our loyal readers, get a peek into what design is all about according to these creative men and women. First off, we have Fashion PR consultant, Diana Opoti, who you may all know from her recently concluded #100DaysofAfricanFashion campaign she ran on her Instagram page.

Design is… “When it comes to fashion in Kenya, I feel that we are just at the right time to set up a board or basically a fashion council that will sort of determine what our seasons are, what two main fashion events we can have every year or even if it was one main one. Once we start to do that we start to be a bit more calculative about what we are putting up, the frequency of what we are putting up and then there will be a demand for products. I would like to acknowledge that a lot of designers are starting to see the need of having a signature look to their work. Designers such as Katungulu Mwendwa, Ami Shah, are coming up really strongly and you can always pinpoint their clothes and that shows an appreciation from the couture’s perspective about how different design is and that also comes with a willingness to pay something for something that’s been designed as opposed to something that was just mass produced. I see a spiral effect following that with more distinct fashion houses; will come the interest in investment of businesses. We are going to start sustaining fashion businesses on the continent.”