There is a point in a brand’s evolution where it must answer a rude but necessary question: can you dress a woman for her real life, not just for her fantasy? With Ranto Clothings’ “Chic Boss Collection,” released August 5, 2023 under Creative Director Bright Urhobo, we get a decisive answer and it is a YES!, with an attitude.
This look, in its apparent simplicity, is Ranto Clothings making its claim for the modern African working woman’s uniform. Not “the boss” as a cartoon stereotype with shoulder pads shouting, but the boss as a presence of calm, structured, intentional.
Let’s begin with the white shirt. We’ve seen endless iterations of the white button-down in fashion, but what Urhobo does here is different: he gives it a boardroom backbone without losing femininity.
The collar is classic, pointed, and deliberately not exaggerated. This matters. Too-wide collars slip into parody and “CEO costume.” Here we have proportion, cleanliness, and a refusal of drama.
The shirt is cut with enough volume in the sleeve and upper arm to move, this is not a constricting, taut, hyper-tailored men’s shirt forced onto a woman’s frame. The fit through the torso is relaxed rather than shrunken. You can tuck it without puckering. You can sit in it for eight hours.
And that, honestly, is radical. African women in professional spaces are too often encouraged to perform “seriousness” through discomfort: corseted waists, immobile peplums, “don’t breathe too hard or it will shift” blouses. Urhobo pushes against that. He offers authority through clarity instead of tightness.
The fabric, from what we can see, is a standard cotton or cotton blend, it is crisp, matte, with enough structure to hold a straight line down the placket but not so stiff it looks starched into aggression. The finish is clean, not glossy. This shirt doesn’t shout. It speaks.
Then we arrive at the trousers.
Black, high-rise, and cut in a subtly flared leg, they immediately recall a certain 1970s softness, those trousers that let women walk into formerly all-male rooms and not ask permission.
Except here, Urhobo switches the expected wool suiting fabric for what reads visually as faux leather or coated fabric. The result is interesting. He’s not just giving us “officewear.” He’s giving us officewear with a bite.
The fabric choice is key. A matte or semi-matte leather-like textile carries connotations: nightlife, edge, sexual agency. Putting that on a tailored trouser base pulls power downward into the hip and thigh. It takes away the old corporate instruction to neutralize the body. The body is not neutralized here. It is framed, seamed, and allowed.
Look closely at the construction: the trousers aren’t sloppy. There’s a defined waistband, a front closure with a visible button, and vertical seam detailing that runs along the leg.
That seaming is clever, it sculpts and lengthens without resorting to darts that would wrinkle on coated fabric. It also reins in the tendency leather-look trousers sometimes have to balloon at the knee or collapse at the ankle.
The leg shape opens gently below the knee. Not a dramatic bell-bottom and not skinny either. It’s a measured flare, the kind that balances the proportions of the body and works well with a heel. And yes, there is a heel.
From a distance, the look sketches a strong inverted triangle. The shoulders are held wide and square by the stance and cut of the shirt, the waist narrows, and the trousers fall in an elongated line to the floor. This is deliberate.
The “Chic Boss” woman is grounded. Her power sits in her stance, in the set of her legs, not only in her upper body.
Let’s talk fabrication again, because it’s the deciding element in whether this look is merely “basic pieces” or something more designed.
The Shirt fabric; breathable, functional, with enough honesty in its weave to feel like daywear, not “evening-white.” This keeps it in the realm of realism.
Trouser fabric; assertive, tactile, with a faint sheen. This injects fashion into what could otherwise be a Zara-level formula. It’s this textile decision that lifts the look into runway conversation. You’re not just looking at “white shirt + black pants.” You’re looking at tension between classic cotton and engineered gloss.
Urhobo understands that tension is the engine of modern dressing. The woman of 2023 (and let’s be honest, 2025, 2030) no longer has the patience for full looks that demand costume changes. She wants hybridity.
This look achieves this successfully because it’s believable. Editors can style fantasy, yes, but buyers invest in credibility. This is credible. Women can actually wear this. In Lagos. In London. In Nairobi. In Paris. It travels.
And it photographs well. The white shirt throws light up into the face. The black trousers pull the gaze down the line of the body. The sandal breaks the severity before it becomes authoritarian. In campaign shots and press runs, this reads as “approachable power,” which is precisely the commercial sweet spot.
If there is a critique and any collection that dares to call itself “Chic Boss” should invite critique, it is this: tailoring at this level begs for obsessive finishing.
The shirt cuffs, for instance, could become a signature if they were slightly exaggerated, French-cut, or if there was a subtle stitch detail that marked them as Ranto.
The trousers, too, could carry a barely visible monogram stitching at the seam or a signature hardware at the waistband button. That is how you build brand codes that last longer than a trend cycle.
But that is long-game thinking. This is a young brand doing the foundational work first.
By Hassan Ssentongo