Editors’ Pick

Last year, when I was working with The Fabricant, Omo sent me a Linkedin connection request in the hopes we could collaborate together in some way. Though that never came to fruition, I did keep up to date with Omo’s postings and with the The Fashion Collective Naija’s Instagram page, and have been continuously impressed with her drive, reach and results.

One of the things that attracted me about returning to PI as Editor of Seamless was that I would no longer be limited in the same ways I was when I was overseeing our physical event portfolio. With Seamless, the world really is my oyster and with that said, I’d ask that your seat backs and tray tables are placed in their upright and locked positions, as we set off to Lagos, Nigeria for this next story.

Welcome to Seamless, Omonigho – to get things started, can you give us a bit of background as to who you are and what your Fashion journey has looked like to date?

Of course and thanks for having me! My name is Omonigho Aito-Imonah, but you can call me Omo for short. I am a Fashion Illustrator & Designer from Lagos, Nigeria, where I still reside today.

Even as a child, I was fascinated with sketching but unfortunately I grew up at a time when Fashion and the Arts in general were not taken seriously and I was encouraged by my very academic father to pursue a more ‘bookish’ route. And so I got a degree in Computer Science. But I never lost that passion for sketching and Fashion and eventually, after my degree, I found a private teacher that offered me a form of apprenticeship; she’d studied in England and had decided to come back and set up a form of unofficial Fashion School where she taught pattern making and garment construction. I did that for some time before having a number of different jobs across the industry including in print, as a style editor, as a pattern maker for a brand and more.

Over those years I noticed a gap in the market for sketching and illustration which is a fundamental part of the creative process before pattern making and construction, but was completely absent from the educational system. So rather than moan about it, I launched my own venture in 2013 called Naijafashionista Illustrations. It came with an uphill battle of course; I had to visit several schools and try and convince them why they should add Fashion Illustration to the curriculum, and at the same time I had to keep up with the times and upskill myself from traditional pen and paper sketches to watercolours, and then onto digital illustrations which have been a core focus of mine ever since. Then COVID hit…

Let’s quickly pause there…what a journey, and I wanted to let our readers know you are considered Nigeria’s first documented, professional Fashion Illustrator, so you’ve clearly made your mark despite the challenges! So yes, COVID then hit in 2020, how did that impact your work?

Well, I was teaching at that point and of course most of my teaching was done in the classroom. In the face of COVID, like all of us, I had to re-think how I taught and delivered my content to my students. I used Whatsapp a lot initially but it soon became apparent that it couldn’t handle the weighty videos I was having to produce, so I switched to Telegram. And this is where things really took off. Because it was online, I came across a much larger and very enthusiastic community of people eager to learn my craft but even more so, eager to share their own work with like-minded people.

It became a platform for connection.

This separate need soon meant I needed to split the group and so I launched a separate channel called Fashion Illustration Naija where people could share, network and learn from one another. Things just kept scaling from there and before long, the word spread about the group and the inspiration coming out of it, and we had all kinds of people start joining like Stylists, Pattern Makers, Textile Designers, Garment Creators and more. It wasn’t just about Illustration anymore so we re-branded to The Fashion Collective Naija and decided to start running exciting initiatives and events. It was crazy to stumble across such an appetite for something like this and of course, really exciting!

You mention launching initiatives for the Fashion Collective Naija community. Can you tell us more about the kinds of initiatives you ran?

So the very first one we ran was the Design Project Naija; it had become apparent that there was amazing untapped talent in the Nigerian community, many of whom weren’t formally trained but just had this amazing natural skill. So I thought, why not put together a month-long competition where each week a new design brief was set and then industry connections of mine, along with me, acted as the judging panel? As I say, each brief was different but the collective theme was to infuse the Nigerian spirit, aesthetic and culture into high-end fashion styles of established brands like those of Balmain, Chanel, Gucci, Balenciaga and so on.

In the end, we had over 100 entries which was way more than we anticipated! My hope and dream was always that it would get traction on social media and attract global attention and to my delight, we ended up pulling in Sara Sozzani Maino, who is the niece of Francesca Sozzani, the late former Vogue Italia’s Editor-in-Chief, and in her own right, former Head of Vogue Italia’s Special Projects, to judge the final 10 which was amazing. Sara is an industry force and she showcased the final 2 artists on her socials which got super engagement from the who’s who of Fashion. To see indigenous Nigerian design and styling given such a platform was a real win!

I then also started an interview series called Industry Giant Talks where we wanted to bring in key voices from the industry, be them local or international, to speak about their journey and area of expertise. To name but a few, we had Sara Sozzani Maino, who I mentioned above, come in and talk about her time at Vogue. We had Simone Cipriani, Founder and Manager of the Ethical Fashion Initiative (EFI). And we had Leslie Holden come in from The Digital Fashion Group to talk all things 3D and digital which was a real highlight.

And a third initiative we ran was linked to the AI craze. I got to know Dagmar Bressel, a German photographer and a huge AI Fashion enthusiast, via an existing connection, Opé M, an American AI designer of African Nigerian descent and 3rd place winner of the 2023 AI Fashion Week competition. Together they hosted a training workshop that introduced our community to AI-powered fashion which was a real eye opener.

I remember Dagmar commenting on how fast our community grasped the AI tools and how delighted she was at some of the work our members were creating.

I managed to then also connect with Kadine James, another renowned AI enthusiast, who has pretty much gone on to mentor this crop of skilled AI artists and has been helping us make noise. We have since ran a couple of collaborations with her – the Symphony AI Collection and the Afrogasm AI Collection – and most recently also showed at Brooklyn Fashion week.

So yes, we have been busy and our community has been getting the mentorship and visibility they deserve! It has also been growing; it has remained mainly Nigerian focussed, but we have also had prominent members join us from Ghana and Senegal too which has been great!

I can see why your engagement scaled so fast given the variety of hot topics you covered. We know Leslie Holden and you said his involvement in your Industry Giants talks was a highlight. Why was that?

Yes it was, because he came in and shared all of this amazing information about Digital Fashion, 3D and the related opportunities and I must admit we were all impressed and excited. But as he was talking, something dawned on me and I very candidly challenged him…

…all of the amazing digital developments promise a more inclusive and diverse industry, but the cost of the necessary hardware and software subscriptions meant the average African was already excluded from the get go. $50 per month for a licence, for example, might be nothing to an American or European, but for an African, that is not cheap.

Add to that, that for most designers to be happy with their final 3D output, they have to spend a long time mastering multiple programmes. Most are never satisfied with the full functionality suite of just one technology because not one is perfect at all aspects of the process. For example, they might learn CLO3D or Style3D for visualisation but are not then happy with the respective rendering abilities and so move into Blender. They then get a rendering they are happy with, but then don’t like the available avatars that come with that software so then might have to move into Daz3D and so on. Not to mention the cost of the hardware needed to run these programmes!

My point is, the learning trajectory is very high and requires significant investment in both time and money.

I think initially Leslie was shocked; I mean he absolutely meant well and believed it was going to be a huge opportunity but that was the reality of things here on the ground. But the best part was he listened, he went away and came back with a proposal: he’d spoken to his Co-Founder and to CLO3D and they were willing to sponsor 5 members of our Collective every month for a year which was huge!

We ran two successful cohorts but then it slowed down…too many people were having issues with the hardware and internet connectivity sadly and so we’ve had to hit pause on it for now until we get the right infrastructure in place. We are hopeful this can resume again really soon, but in the meantime, it’s great that we have more access to AI and its amazing capabilities!

Yes, well let’s talk about AI. What does AI offer your community that 3D never has?

Accessibility, speed and convenience.

As I mentioned, after only a couple of training sessions we could see people progressing super fast with AI in a way that they never did with 3D. With only a few prompts, people were creating these well-rendered and super high-fashion looks that they could then easily share to their socials for immediate engagement. Plus, as most AI programmes can be run off of your smartphone and are either free or cheap to use, its utility requires little to no investment beyond what you already have at your fingertips.

Of course, the outputs of 3D and AI have different use cases. With 3D, the assets are much more technical and functional and from these you can get patterns and tech packs with which you can then make the garment physically. What AI spits out is aesthetically amazing but it doesn’t allow that to be translated into anything more tangible right now.

But I am looking to the future where I hope that AI advances to the point that with a few prompts you not only get a beautiful picture, but a suggested, well-considered and usable tech pack with which they can then be created. This would be a game changer so I am glad to see many in our community already getting involved in this space.

It’s really levelled the playing field in terms of creativity and design in a way that 3D hasn’t yet managed to do for us here.

Well, let me start with a brief bit of history. We were colonised by the British for 60 years and gained independence in 1960. Given their presence, our Fashion was of course highly influenced by the British at that time. Our first documented Fashion Designer was Shade Thomas-Fahm, who originally went to England in the 50’s to study Nursing but soon transferred to Central Saint Martins to study Fashion Design instead. She was very successful and ended up having a couple of shows in the UK before returning home in 1960 to set up our first official label and boutique called Maison Shade.

Shade brought with her the technical pattern making and well-fitting tailoring skills she’d learned in the UK and this, in parallel to the post-independence buzz, really kick-started a new era of Fashion in Nigeria. But by the 90s, careers in Fashion and the Arts were no longer well respected and we fell back into freehand cutting which meant poor fit, lot’s of waste and a fall in creative interest. So this set us back a fair bit.

I guess what I am trying to say is that our formal Fashion sector is still very young compared to the West. The industry is only about 50 years old which is why we are still at the rudimentary stages, but the advantage we do have is that we’ve seen the mistakes that the West has made – especially in terms of overproduction and waste – and we adamantly want to do things differently.

In terms of Design, we have some very bright minds creating incredible Fashion and getting seen on the global stage. People like Deola Sagoe who has appeared on the Oprah Show: she uses indigenous Yoruba Aso-oké materials to make high Fashion pieces. A little like the Donna Karan of Nigeria. We have people like Adebayo Oke-Lawal, the designer behind The Orange Nerd, who has been globally recognised and was an LVMH prize finalist a few years back. We have the Lagos Space Programme who won the International Woolmark Prize last year for their dedication to slow fashion. And many more that are slowly but surely making their mark on the global stage.

And in terms of Production, that has gradually been moving from places like China, Bangladesh and India, to Africa and here we have both the numbers and the intelligence to really leverage that as an opportunity. We only have a few larger factories right now but there are many smaller ones that cater to private labels. However, there are many bigger factories mainly in Ethiopia and Ghana that are well positioned to scale to meet manufacturing demand.

And finally, we have Lagos Fashion Week that is the largest Fashion event on the continent and has been making huge waves in terms of representation and innovation.

I think it’s also important here to talk about the Nigerian people as a collective. Our reputation globally isn’t great as a result of the fraudulent activities of a select few however, there’s no denying our collective creativity and intelligence as can be witnessed in our music and movies.

So all in all, we may be a young industry but our community is vibrant, tenacious and hard-working and things are changing fast! I think the West has an inaccurate view of who we are and I’m glad to see that evolving.

I’m glad you mention Lagos Fashion Week because it has of course gained significant recognition. What do you believe has contributed to its success, and how does it reflect the vibrancy of the Nigerian fashion scene?

Well, first a bit of background: things really started taking off in the early 2000s and this is when we had our first, what was then called, Nigerian Fashion Week. We suddenly had a place where local Designers could present their collections…well, I say collections but it was more like random looks grouped together, but there was usually no overarching style or narrative. But it was fine because we knew most of these people were self-taught and these things take time – it was at least a starting point! This went on for a few years and then stopped.

We then had Arise Fashion Week which also did a great job of showcasing Nigerian fashion designers but also only lasted a couple of years after which it too stopped.

Today’s Lagos Fashion Week was founded by Omoyemi Akerele. Omoyemi trained in law but in 2004, left that behind to focus her efforts on better establishing and promoting the Nigerian Fashion industry. In 2008, she founded Style House Files, a Fashion agency, and it was through that work that led to the Lagos Fashion Week launching in 2011, which I am thrilled to say has stuck. Because of her consistency and perseverance, Omoyemi has been a highly respected name in this space for a long time.

And Lagos Fashion Week has just been this recurring and growing opportunity for the continent’s talent to showcase their amazing talent, designs and vision.

It has been especially important for younger and emerging designers to showcase their work in what is arguably Africa’s Fashion capital. Here, people don’t have to conform and can really push the envelope and be daring, whilst paying homage to their culture. It’s very inspiring!

I hope to see it one day! What would you say are the biggest barriers facing Nigerians when it comes to elevating their craft and brand?

One of the greatest barriers to our creative community right now really is Fashion education. It is not where it needs to be and it is sadly stunting the potential of many of our designers, creators and more. There are educational institutions that have dedicated programmes, like the Yaba College of Technology, but they are few and far between and their curriculums are very dated and stuck in, I’d say, the 60’s way of doing things. We will never be able to compete on a global stage if this doesn’t change in a meaningful way. Here, though people have the creativity, without the technical know how, there is a lot of copying that goes on of other people’s work because they can more easily get the dimensions and know it will sell. But we are so much more than that!

I stumbled across one lady who had a brand here in Nigeria – I won’t name names. But when I was looking at her work it was good but there was nothing fantastic about the brand if I’m totally honest. But I continued to follow her and a couple of years later she had relocated to the US and it was fascinating to see how much her quality and tailoring had improved.

It’s one thing to be crazy creative and to have all of these ideas, but it’s another thing to be able to see that creation come to life and that’s where technique comes in. There is just something about a well made garment: you don’t even need to physically touch it but you can tell from just looking at it that it’s incredibly well constructed. And she had elevated her craft because of the education that was available to her in the US; an education she wouldn’t have received here.

Another barrier is that our Government still does not take this sector as seriously as it should. They still have the attitude of ‘it’s just not that important’ and that trickles down in so many socio-economic ways. Yes, there is a huge focus on technology and start-ups, but much less so for anything Fashion-specific. Myself, and I am sure many others, are actively trying to change this by reaching out to our Ministers of Innovation and crying out for more attention. This is a $3B industry – it is absolutely deserving of resources and we have everything we need at the foundation to scale quickly and effectively. In the West there are so many programmes, competitions, grants…you name it! We need that kind of incentive and assistance here too!

Finally, and this is a more global issue, if you look at any of the big Fashion schools around the world – the ones that offer the highest quality of education – they tend to have a very low population of black students and I can’t begin to overstate how much that lack of representation impacts us.

So yes, a lot of big barriers but thankfully there is a strong group of people, of which I am a part of, relentlessly shouting out about this and encouraging change.

You’ve certainly made strides already so the community is in good hands. I’ll end with this: you mentioned earlier about the West having misconceptions about Nigeria, and about Africa, in general. Are there any last thoughts you’d like to share on this topic specifically?

Yes there are and it’s not your fault: many in the West are only ever bombarded with the same kind of narratives and imagery of civil unrest, war, poverty, starvation and more. But that is a very narrow view into what Africa is like.

I was so grateful when the Black Panther movies came out because, yes, of course that is a fantastical utopia, but in reality we are innovative and we are very fashion-forward. We don’t ride around on animals, wear grass skirts and live in trees and this is also why AI is such a game-changer for us, because finally it is an avenue through which we can easily access tools and showcase African fashion in its highest form.

We are a young community, but we are already doing amazing things and growing fast. It would be unwise to disregard what we can, and are, bringing to the table!

Well said Omo! Thank you so much for your time today and here’s to a brighter and more equitable future for everyone in this space!

Have any questions or comments? Pop them in the comments section below and we’ll come back to you!