African Wardrobe Festival To Debut on Saturday in Fort Lauderdale
Fashion designer Patricia Holland grew up in Nigeria watching her parents wear colorful traditional clothing. Although she preferred wearing Western clothes, she coveted one of her mother’s traditional outfits. It included a purple lace buba, a shirt with loose sleeves; and a wrapper, a fabric worn around the waist like a skirt. When Holland was 13, her mother let her wear the outfit to a friend’s birthday party.
Patricia Holland, of Hollywood, is among the designers set to showcase their work at the first African Wardrobe Festival, taking place Aug. 29 at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center in Fort Lauderale. Holland’s store, Pattys Place, is located in North Miami. (Barbara Corbellini Duarte / SouthFlorida.com)
“When I put on my clothes, I feel very secure. I feel like a million bucks in my clothes,” says Holland, 49. “These African clothes, when you put them on, you feel like a queen.”
Holland, who lives in Hollywood, will be a featured designer at the African Wardrobe Festival, debuting Saturday, Aug. 29, at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center in Fort Lauderdale. The event will include fashion shows, mixers, workshops and vendors showcasing African clothing, jewelry and food. Guests are encouraged to arrive wearing traditional African outfits.
“I am most excited about seeing the attendees enjoying themselves,” says Jaury Jean-Enard, the festival’s creative director. “I would like to see them attend in their African wardrobes, and engage with African culture whether they’re from Africa or not.”
Holland’s fashion show will begin at 3:40 p.m. and will feature traditional and contemporary African clothes from her North Miami store, Pattys Place.
“You find that it’s not just us Africans that are wearing these clothes now,” she says. “It’s Haitians, black Americans, people from the islands. Everybody is wearing these clothes now.”
Holland created her business almost by accident, after her sister sent her clothes from Nigeria and asked her to sell them in the United States.She sold all the clothes within a couple of months. About a year later, she started Pattys Place.
The business operates from a booth inside a flea market on Seventh Street in North Miami. Holland’s multicolored designs hang from the booth’s walls and ceiling. She sells contemporary African dresses, skirts and corsets, and traditional clothing, including bubas and wrappers, that Holland says is made in Nigeria with Nigerian prints.
“It speaks for itself,” she says. “Everywhere you go, you get compliments on the clothes.”
Holland also sells shoes, purses, hand fans and geles, traditional Nigerian head wraps. She creates about 50 designs a month, and no two are ever the same. The items cost from $20 to $300.
“We don’t do mass production of clothing. That’s how my customers like their clothing,” she says. “We have customers who like certain things, and they inspire you all the time to make new clothing.”
The African Wardrobe Festival will take place 12 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29, at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center, 2650 Sistrunk Blvd., in Fort Lauderdale. Admission is $29.99. Go to AfricanWardrobeFestival.org. Pattys Place is located at 13995 NW Seventh Ave., Booth C22, in Miami, and is open Wednesday through Sunday. To reach Holland, call 954-591-2653 or email [email protected].