Renaissance Men SA: #LOOK_BOOK: Otteng Presents the AfroNuvo Look Book

We recently discovered the Ghanaian brand, Otteng. Without fail, much like all the other African menswear brands popping up, Otteng shows signs of a holistic understanding of their vision for menswear in Africa and their placement within that market. The offering we stumble upon is an amalgamation of androgyny with athleisure. A dose of African context with experimental consideration for treatments to the fabric.

“Aside from the silhouettes, shapes, gender-bending exploration, Harajuku and athleisure influences, the collection is built on a series of paintings – African alphabets and symbols by Ghanain artist, Issac Opoku – under his exhibition, AfroNuvo”, cites Creative Director of Otteng, Samuel Otengantwi. “His [Isaac’s] painting, which tackle the surpression of many indigenous African writing systems, informed the prints used for the collection.”

The collection includes Batik, silk screen printing, fabric painting, hand embellishment, dyeing and other techniques and procedures. The collection is light, modern, yet comes across as definitively African in its interpretation, aesthetic and styling.