The latest episode of Africa Avant Garde follows African designers who are taking part in New York Fashion Week. CNN meets with Nigerian designer Tia Adeola, and others, who are bringing fashion from the continent, into America.
CNN gains an insight into the casting process for a fashion show, as Adeola invites Africa Avant Garde along while she chooses her models. She explains, “I kind of visualise what I want my girl to look like walking down the runway and each specific look. And I think part of being a designer and doing this means that you sort of have an eye for those things. So, I can sort of look at a girl that walks in and just know that she’s going to look great in a specific dress. I can’t necessarily tell you how, I think it’s just something that you have an eye for.”
New York Fashion Week 2025 is Adeola’s sixth runway show. For her, fashion week is really important because, “We have these communities that we communicate with all the time online. We release new clothes, we release new trendy pieces that our audiences want to wear, but they never really get to engage with us. The brand gets recognised in all the press and by the celebrities and artists that we all love that are on the runway show.”
However, the process of being on the calendar for fashion week is difficult but rewarding. Adeola talks CNN through the procedure, “You have to submit your collections, you have to answer vigorous questions. It’s definitely a filtering process. And for me as a young designer, it’s definitely an honour to be on the calendar sitting next to some of those names. So, it’s a big deal to me.”
Designer Chucks Collins is also on this season’s calendar. He highlights the struggle for African designers to make it, “I feel like a lot of us Africans don’t get listed on the calendar. So past season you probably might see one or two people who are African on the official calendar and season after season that keep happening. And I keep telling myself, no, this doesn’t have to be right. I myself alone can’t do it. But also I myself alone can’t give the African narrative of what African fashion is.”
As a Nigerian designer, Adeola centres her designs around Nigerian inspirations. She describes the Nigerian traditions that feature in her work, “We see a lot of things that are really symbolic in Nigeria, like coral beads, which Ebo brides wear in the Ebo tribe. We see a lot of cow shell cowrie beads. We see quite literally the Nigerian flag on some skirts. So really diving into my culture.”
Cameroonian designer Kibonen Nfi has a similar method of creating work with meaning. Each of her designs are linked to her culture and heritage, telling CNN, “For this collection, I’m working with Nduop fabric, which is from the Bmileke region in Cameroon. And when you look at their textiles, it’s called the Nduop. So, when you look at that even in depth, you realise that they have symbols on this fabric which have specific meanings, so I look for symbols that are representative of my reality and I put them on the fabric, which I’m using now for this collection. So that is the commitment for me telling African stories unapologetically and in their authenticity.”
Adeola ends the show by looking at the potential for other African designers to follow in her footsteps and be granted opportunities by the rest of the world, “I think I’m one of the first few Africans really doing it on this scale and hopefully it opens more doors for the rest to come because I personally feel like Africa, Nigeria, not to be biased, has some of the most talented seamstresses artisans, just creative people in general. And I think the world is starting to catch on.”
