- African artistes are now seeing that their look is crucial to their brand image
In this day and age, a musician’s stylist is as important as any other part of their recording career. This is something Coke Studio Africa is keenly aware of when it creates the eye-popping studio shows to showcase all of Africa’s diversely vibrant looks.
The person brought on board for this was Kenyan stylist Wambui Thimba, who has been making a mark on the fashion scene for 11 years in music videos, newspapers, movies (including the multiple award-winning Rafiki), magazines and three seasons of Coke Studio Africa.
Wambui says African artistes are now seeing that their look is crucial to their brand image and many are now working with stylists for their music videos, performances and public appearances.
Regarding her career path, she says, "It began back in 2008, a former classmate of mine approached me and asked me to style the fashion page for a magazine she was the editor of. That was the first time I had heard the word 'stylist'.
"She told me I always had an eye for fashion back in high school, and thought I should give it a try. After she told me what the job entailed, I decided to give it a go. After all, I was getting paid to shop!"
Her big break came when she worked for a national newspaper. "It was there that I built my name as a stylist and formed relationships with designers, stores, models, photographers and lots of other people in the industry.”
Since then, she has gone on to work with Tusker Project Fame, Moments with Mo, Maisha Superstar and lots more, including Coke Studio Africa, of course, which was “an exciting prospect but also frightening because I would get to meet and style Africa’s biggest artistes".
She hit her stride, though, and can now face any challenge. That is the nature of making TV, which she loves for the diversity of people on set and lessons learnt.
"In Kenya, we don’t have a lot of stores that stock current trends especially for menswear, so most of the outfits the male artistes wore were custom-made. Time was, therefore, one of my biggest challenges, as I would meet the artistes on a Monday and would have to have all their outfits ready by Thursday for a full dress rehearsal and photo shoot on Friday," Wambui says.
Her work on Coke Studio Africa happened under tight timelines, with the involvement of multiple players. She shares, “After meeting with the artistes, my team and I would then have another meeting and finalise the looks for each artiste and decide what to source and what to get made.
"Each artiste would perform three to four songs, which all required a different outfit. I would then meet with the main designer that created most of the outfits and we would go through the different designs per artiste per song and select fabrics."