Mowalola showed off his Spring 2024 collection at London Fashion Week on Saturday (16/9/2023) local time. A number of models demonstrated Mowalola’s new collection, entitled Crash.
With black eye make-up and artificial bruises, the models were seen wearing tracksuits, zipped mock neck dresses, dirty denim, cropped jackets and mini skirts inspired by motosports and boxing. When it reached netizens, the collection apparently went viral, causing controversy.
Mowalola SS24 Mini Skirt Collection/ Photo: Gorunway.com/Flippo Fior
The reason is, Mowalola released a mini skirt using the Saudi Arabian flag design. White and black models were seen on the runway walking together wearing identical twin T-shirts. The appearance of the two models was then complemented by a mini skirt depicting the flags of China and Saudi Arabia.
Many netizens considered Mowalola’s actions to be unethical and disrespectful to religion. The reason is that the green Saudi Arabian flag is accompanied by the shahada. In Islam, the shahada is a sentence of testimony that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.
Designer Mowalola Ogunlesi’s Apology
Mowalola Spring 2024 Collection/ Photo: Gorunway.com/Flippo Fior
Mowalola’s mini skirt collection has a world flag theme. Apart from China and Saudi Arabia, there are also mini skirt silhouettes that use the flags of the United States and Japan. The skirt was combined with a white T-shirt that read 4 Slim People, which also became controversial because it was similar to Karl Lagerfeld’s Spring 2004 collection.
After the show at London Fashion Week, designer Mowalola Ogunlesi’s Instagram account was flooded with comments. Many netizens left emojis of the Saudi Arabian flag, they asked the designer to remove the mini skirt collection and also asked for an apology.
Mowalola Ogunlesi (right)/ Photo: instagram.com/mowalola
Responding to attacks from netizens, Mowalola Ogunlesi had posted on X (formerly Twitter), “Cry me a river” and “A mini skirt being an act of war in 2023 is so dystopian”, which have now been deleted.
This Nigerian-born fashion designer who lives in London finally removed the Saudi Arabian flag mini skirt from the Mowalola Spring 2024 collection. He also wrote an apology which was posted on X via the @MOWALOLA_ account.
“One of my key inspirations for SS24 was to use the national flags of different countries. After the show, I found that one of these flags – Saudi Arabia – features sacred words, and its use has caused great offense. Now that I’ve been educated on this topic, I sincerely apologize.”
So, what do you think, Beauties?
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(dmh/dmh)