Simi was one of the performers at the Big Bother Naija eviction party on Sunday night, the amiable pop star enchanted the audience in the auditorium and at home with her performance, however what she wore to perform also grabbed a lot of unwanted attention.
For her first performance, Simi had on an understated all-black ensemble that divided opinions but it was the outfit the singer wore after the black outfit that really made the Twitter fashion police issue a warrant for her arrest.
For her second performance of the night, Simi wore a white, oversized Ajeh shirt with the sleeves partly rolled up and a pleated, check skirt with a high waist and a wide base; it’s a look that made her appear like an innocent school girl.
While on stage, the singer put her soul into the music but rather than focus on the performance, a lot of the feedback she received on Twitter was about her outfit.
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Simi was styled by celebrity stylist Swanky Jerry who also styled another performer that night Emma Nyra – another singer who gets flak regularly for her outfits. While the interest Simi’s fashion choices helped to generate is generally better than the audience being indifferent to what she was doing that evening, it’s obvious that the singer didn’t enjoy the feedback as she reportedly blocked a number of users on Twitter.
This isn’t the first time the X3M Music star’s fashion sense has been a topic of online discussion either. In an interview with The Cover Magazine last year, Simi was quizzed about her ‘interesting’ choice of garb and was asked about what she considered as her weirdest fashion moment, she shared:
I think the outfit that has had the weirdest comments was this absolutely beautiful dress – it’s green and yellow and it was like a halter and then it had this chain thing hanging. But then when I took a picture, it didn’t photograph as nice as the dress was… People said it looked like I was going for cultural dance.
In the interview, the singer defined her style as ‘laid back’ and ‘tomboyish’ and ultimately, she feels the problem is with the camera angles and not the clothes she puts on.
Whatever is the case, with Simi working hard to release her official debut album this year, her fashion sense as a talking point is surely an unwelcome distraction that shouldn’t be allowed to linger for an eternity. While her talent is in no way competing for recognition with her fashion identity, every time she has to appear in front of a camera – a photo shoot, a recorded performance etc., the attention should be less about what she has on and more about what she’s doing and how she’s doing it. And even if what she has on gets some attention, it shouldn’t be overwhelmingly negative.
Hopefully the situation can be remedied soon because unlike how she and Falz milked the love triangle with Adekunle Gold as the third vertex to produce a smashing EP in Chemistry, this kind of bad press will need a little more sophistication to shake off.