DESIGNER FOCUS: Angelsmile House Of  Design

Angelsmile ambassador Susan Wong in Angelsmile bridal. PHOTO | COURTESY

What you need to know:

  • My sole purpose since Angelsmile opened 10 years ago has been to create masterpieces that bring out an individual’s joy and beauty when worn. Angelsmile masterpieces stimulate confidence, class and a sprinkle of glamour; an everyday suit of armour.
  • My early influence shaped my decisions from then on, creating a singular focus through my choices in academics and apprenticeship. In an ever evolving world, and an even faster fashion industry, learning never stops.

Every week as I sit down to write a few hundred words of fashion wisdom to share with you, my hope is that I’m able to influence and inspire a society to appreciate beauty through design and purpose.

This is what we see everyday in the world’s fashion icons, models, designers and celebrities, and which we now see locally through the growth of a fashion forward crop of individuals who have incorporated fashion into their everyday life.

This week, our designer focus looks inwards, on a design brand house I started 10 years ago — Angelsmile House of Design.

I realised my fashion calling at a young age, and found immense inspiration and fascination in the pieces I found in my mother’s closet; glamorous bold coloured gowns that I couldn’t wait to fit into and borrow, high heels that I wore and wobbled in as I walked her out to work, awe inspiring sparkly earrings and brooches, all of which were my versions of treasure.

My early influence shaped my decisions from then on, creating a singular focus through my choices in academics and apprenticeship. In an ever evolving world, and an even faster fashion industry, learning never stops. Understanding this means that even after achieving the basic skills at school level, you need to dedicate significant portions of your everyday life, just as in any craft, to hone your skill.

EXCLUSIVE SERIES

Working locally under Monica Kanari as a junior designer, and more recently at Vivo Active wear as a creative director, have all been invaluable life lessons that have shaped how my own business, Angelsmile House of Design, has grown to where it is.

My sole purpose since Angelsmile opened 10 years ago has been to create masterpieces that bring out an individual’s joy and beauty when worn. Angelsmile masterpieces stimulate confidence, class and a sprinkle of glamour; an everyday suit of armor.

Over the years, this has been re-affirmed by seeing the change and joy that my pieces have brought into women’s lives, the excitement my clients experience on seeing themselves in a new and better light, and the deep satisfaction I have knowing I’ve positively influenced the world around me.

Many opportunities exist locally, but the road is nowhere close to rosy. Starting out as a young fashion enthusiast, to having made over 15,000 dresses and designs over the past 10 years, working three fashion-related job positions, and dressing many of the popular local fashion icons, I’d advocate for clarity and confidence in your vision, following your dreams and working as hard as you can to achieve them.

With this will come discipline and clarity in all aspects of your life and, most importantly, the strength to never give up on yourself.

Over the past couple of months, the in-house team at Vivo and I have been working on an exclusive series of collections designed and created by Wambui Kibue for Vivo. This will be my first ready-to-wear pieces available in retail, and I am looking forward to seeing how the consumers interact with both brands through this collaboration.

Clothes are considered the greatest art you can invest in because we spend our lives in them! In the words of one of my life’s inspiration, Beyonce: “Fashion is a tool for finding your own identity, expression and strength”. May we see the great potential for and in our country that fashion possesses.