STUDENT STORIES

By KARYN D. COLLINS

Growing up, first in Nigeria and then in North Brunswick, the Obajinmi sisters - Moriamo and Latifat, knew their parents expected certain things. One of those expectations was that when they grew up they would be in charge. For older sister Moriamo, the original plan to become a doctor was adjusted while at Rutgers to leading in the pharmaceutical industry. Being a human resource generalist was the plan for younger sister Latifat.

Today, the sisters are in charge but not in the way their parents expected.

The two are running (and designing) their own fashion line – Philadelphia-based Aso Damisi (pronounced ah-SHAW DAH-me-see), bucking years of expectations to follow their hearts and their creative muse.

“In the beginning, at first, they thought it was a joke. It was ‘Oh, it’s a phase they’re going through. They’ll get over it’,” said 32-year-old Moriamo, who earned a degree in chemistry in 2003, recalling the reactions of their parents when the sisters started the label four years ago.

Added 24-year-old Latifat who completed her degree in Fall 2012, “Being designers was not the plan they had for us. Not at all. It was ‘You’re NOT leaving school’.”

But added Moriamo, who is also a married mom with a four-year-old daughter (she’s known by her married name, Johnson), their parents gradually came around to the idea.

Aso Damisi is a women’s clothing label that fuses the sisters’ Nigerian roots with contemporary fashion. In the Yoruba culture, Aso means cloth or clothing and Damisi means prosperity.

The line, inspired by the bright patterned fabrics the sisters grew up with, features patterns based on traditional African textiles. But Aso Damisi adds Western contemporary touches in the fabrics - stretch cottons and silks, as well as in the silhouettes – Western fashion staples like the sheath dresses, pencil skirts and blazers that are featured in the line’s current collection.

Neither sister studied fashion growing up. Their learning curve since starting Aso Damisi has been steep. Latifat, who designs the line, learned how to sew. Moriamo, who ran a successful side business selling Mary Kay Cosmetics while working in research and development for a pharmaceutical company, put her salesmanship skills to work for Aso Damisi.

Aso Damisi has gained a growing following; it’s currently sold in 10 boutiques across the country with projections to expand to around 50 by the end of this year.

Still, the sisters said that despite their steady progress, their parents’ acceptance of their unorthodox career detour was helped considerably by an achievement attained last year.

That’s when Aso Damisi was selected to be part of the inaugural class of the city of Philadelphia’s Fashion Incubator program, an initiative designed to promote Philadelphia as a fashion hub and entice young designers to establish businesses in the city of Brotherly Love.

Aso Damisi snared the only slot (out of four) in the Incubator program set aside for designers who were not recent graduates of a Philadelphia fashion school. As Designers-in-Residence, the pair spent most of last year (they graduated from the program in February) working out of an office at Macy’s Center City in downtown Philadelphia where they were closely mentored by business and fashion executives.

“Getting into the Incubator validated to (our parents) that we were serious,” Latifat said. “I mean, the press conference for the Incubator had the mayor there, all the press. The head of Macy’s was there. It was a big deal.”

Even before they were accepted into the Incubator program, the sisters had already done extensive work figuring out crucial details – from finding affordable textile resources, to marketing and sales, to settling on production details like having their line made in the Philadelphia area near their home in Sicklerville, NJ instead of in Southeast Asia where many fashion lines are produced.

The sisters are well aware that these are some of the many factors that have sunk other fashion lines, big and small.

“We’re always going to do our research. That’s who we are. Asking questions. Listening,” Moriamo said.

Added Latifat, “We do our homework. We love fashion but it has to make sense from a business perspective. Just making pretty clothes that don’t sell is not what we want.”

(reprinted from Rutgers Magazine)

By KARYN D. COLLINS

The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!

That’s Russian as in Bolshoi, all four parts of Russia’s most celebrated artistic entity – the Bolshoi Ballet, Opera, Orchestra and Chorus. It’s an institution that traces its history back to Catherine the Great. The occasion for the Russian invasion is a two-week residency connected to the annual Lincoln Center Festival.

Of all these, it is the 200-strong Bolshoi Ballet, which will perform July 15-27 at Lincoln Center’s Metropolitan Opera House that is creating the most buzz, and not just because of the dancing.

This is the same Bolshoi Ballet which was roiled by a scandal in which its artistic director was nearly blinded by a January 13 attack in which sulfuric acid was thrown into his face. Today, after 27 surgeries, director Sergei Filin remains blinded in one eye and has only 50 percent vision in the other, but has resumed his duties as director.

A Bolshoi dancer was sentenced to prison after confessing to plotting the attack with the help of two thugs. The dancer was angered about not being cast in certain roles, and was also about that his girlfriend - a fellow dancer – had not been promoted.

But the investigation and trial about the attack laid bare an organization that had been rife with corruption, long-simmering resentments and resistance to change. Though lauded by critics, Filin’s reform efforts since he took over in 2011 – including new ballets and new dancers like American David Hallberg – were met with protests within the Bolshoi.

Ismene Brown, dance commentator for BBC Radio and former critic for London’s Daily Telegraph, said it was important to understand the bigger picture behind the Filin attack and the subsequent revelations from the investigation.

“These are symptoms, in part, of the culture clash going on between the stagnant ideas and working conditions of the Soviet era still being applied in modern Russia, while at the same time trying to catch up with the Western developments in ballet and free-market conditions,” she said. “Filin, who is 43, … represents a more open, Western-minded approach that still recognises the core importance of the works of the old Soviet chief Yuri Grigorovich (who is still working, at 86).

“But that argument between east/west, past/present, rages on still, with an ‘old guard’ that is suspicious of US and European dance and believes the Soviet discipline and pro-Russia focus produced the best in world ballet. This plays into the current trend in Russian politics under Putin towards inwardness and nationalism, but it's much more than just some old cliché. It is a genuine dilemma.”

And yet, in the midst of all of this controversy, there is still the dancing. The Bolshoi’s corps de ballet, for example, is legendary not just for its large size but for its strong, dramatic style.

However, it should be noted that none of the company’s newer, more modern repertoire will be seen during its New York residency.

Instead, the Bolshoi will present three traditional warhorses from its repertoire – “Swan Lake,” “Don Quixote,” and “Spartacus” - the type of traditional fare that audiences have come to expect from the Bolshoi.

Anna Kisselgoff, former chief dance critic for the New York Times, said that while the Bolshoi hasn’t been seen in New York City for several years, the company has toured recently in the United States including a series of performances in May in Washington, D.C. The company also has been seen in a series of recent cinema broadcasts.

But Kisselgoff said the Bolshoi that New York audiences see may not be the Bolshoi that fans remember or have read about.

“They have traditionally had a style that is very dramatic. Their big trademark was that they were very, very strong classical dancers who were very dramatically expressive. But now I don’t see that they do that as much,” she said. “They seem to have become more academic, more in a style that emphasizes having the dancers dance very pure.

“When I saw them, the thing I noticed is that it’s not the old Bolshoi style. But it also depends on who’s dancing. It will be interesting to see them in New York.”

(reprinted from FashionReverie.com

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