My graduate collection called ‘Adire Ogun’ is about the End Sars movement (a protest against police brutality and misconduct) that happened in Nigeria last year. I decided to express myself through my craft.
My muse, Aisha Yesufu on the front line of the protest, wearing her long floating dress and her hijab. Upon seeing her, the idea of protecting her and gearing her up against the police on the other side came to me.
Her dress reminded me of the Nigerian traditional men’s attire which I then merged with military detailing to create a new silhouette.
Most of the fabrics I used for my collection were dead-stock fabrics that I found during my year out at Tommy Hilfiger. I also used some fabrics that were donated to Kingston University.
I used fabrics such as shirting fabrics, hence the stripes, different coloured corduroys, cotton drill and different weight cottons.
I decoloured and dyed my fabrics using “Adire” a Nigerian tie-dye technique to get the blue tones that you can see throughout my collection.
Credits:
Photograph: Ivory Campell
Models: David Alajiki and Adekemi Tej
Trust the process, take it one day at a time.