Following his Spring/Summer 2020 showcase on Tuesday at the New York Fashion Week, Vogue features designer, Adebayo Oke-Lawal and his daring yet incredible pieces.
Oke-Lawal leads the charge of the gender-fluid fashion movement in Nigeria with collections that encapsulate items both for men and women.
In the feature, Oke-Lawal talks about his struggles as a Nigerian designer having to strive through multiple challenges and hate including death threats. His brand, Orange Culture, founded in 2011 has been an instrumental vehicle in championing representation of masculinity.”
Oke-Lawal’s collections have seen him categorized as a menswear designer, despite him championing the unisex and representation of masculinity. The approach has been an uphill battle, he explains—there were even death threats in the early years.
Commenting on the feature, Adebayo shares; “It’s not perfect. We don’t have one million machines. We’re building. We still make everything in Nigeria. And we have a story to tell. This is my own Lagos, my own take of what Africa can bring to the table nowadays. And this is coming from someone who has been in the community and designed based on the community. It is to show what we really are things are not perfect and that he still has a long way to go.”
Click to read the Vogue feature here;
By The Arubayi Keme