Fresh Off The Boat
A tribute to the transmigration of 1948, Sagaboi’s Geoff Cooper commemorates the 75th Windrush anniversary in his SS24 collection. A Caribbean-born brand, Sagaboi took the arrival of the SS Empire Windrush, carrying 492 Caribbean immigrants to the UK, and turned it into a celebration of cultural diversity and harmonisation.
Titled “Fresh Off The Boat”, the collection fathoms that initial feeling of foreignness and the merging of cultures across two lands. Although a sometimes-derogatory term, Cooper’s collection puts a playful spin on the semi-xenophobic phrase, encouraging his audience to visualise the forthcoming for its distinctive freshness of life, style and character that came and continues to come along with the mass migration of people.
True to Caribbean heritage, the collection bursts with the vibrance and energy of a subculture anchored in a style begging to be seen. An explosive colour palette consisting of rich reds, cobalt blues, and sprightly yellows stormed down the runway in a series of laid-back shapes and choppy textures. Colourful co-ords cascaded off the models, giving a movement to the garments that emphasised the more tropical and airy feeling of island living, whilst slogans such as ‘LAWD ‘AVE MERCY” made their mark, with jargon mirroring West-Indian colloquial dialect and visuals reviving the Black voice.
Once again, the steel pan, permeated throughout the brand’s identity, made its iconic appearance on the runway. As the national percussion instrument of Trinidad and Tobago, the steel pan’s presence in the collection continued to sing to its Caribbean roots and carry the Caribbean voice. The winter steel pan bombers of previous collections turned to gilets, designed with distressed steel pan quilting and rough island stitchwork; meanwhile, to capture the essence of the Caribbean islands, Sagaboi enrolled Caribbean female knitters to handcraft knitwear pieces that were inspired by materials found in local fishing villages.
Cooper’s high-spirited Fresh Off The Boat SS24 collection is where fashion officially meets culture. Oozing a cultural confidence both defined and no longer defined by diaspora, it signals both the power of cultural amalgamation and a celebration of a mass migration movement that shaped the Caribbean nation and, even more so, the United Kingdom.
Vitalij Sidorovic
Dave Bennett Getty
Dave Bennett Getty
Vitalij Sidorovic
Vitalij Sidorovic
Dave Bennett Getty
Vitalij Sidorovic
Vitalij Sidorovic
@allphoto.art
@allphoto.art
Vitalij Sidorovic
We spoke to Sagaboi Creative Director Geoff Cooper after the show …
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CREDITS
Creative Director: Geoff K. Cooper @geoffkcooper
Jewellery: Rae Hugh Design @raehughdesign
Sunglasses: Spektre Sunglasses @spektresunglasses | Oakley @oakley.
Casting: The Atentive Agency @theatentiveagency, Kehinde Akinnawo @kae.jameela
MUA/Hair: Liz Martins (Head) @lizmartinsmakeup, Nicole Gale, Gloria Pernandas, Shamirah Sairally, Tiffany Humphreys & Lalah.
COM/ PR / Content – Natalia Cassel / Cassel Consultancy @nataliacassel | Kehinde Akinnawo / The Atentive Agency @theatentiveagency / @kae.jameelaDesign Team: Shanel Brown @miz_s_brown, Kaleem Iverson @blameitonmyrebelsoul, Annette Mazinyi @_mazinyi, Lauren Cook @himlloz, Saly Kone @salyyy_k