IamIsigo doesn’t follow trends or care about dressing for attention. The brand’s founder, Nigerian designer Bubu Ogisi, launched her artisanal label in 2013 and has been championing luxury style that’s deeply rooted in African traditions and ideologies ever since. Collaborating with craftspeople from across the continent, including Kenya, Uganda, Benin, and Cote d’Ivoire, Bubu’s work reconciles craft traditions and textiles from these regions and beyond, into unique yet globally appealing garments and accessories. Reflecting the designer’s deep commitment to slow fashion and quality design, each piece is crafted over time and can take months to create, reflecting her passion for meticulous workmanship and collaboration.
With the unveiling of its new collection, Dual Mandate, at Copenhagen Fashion Week, the brand builds on its growing opportunities to reach new global markets and consumers. In 2023, IamIsigo collaborated with Victoria’s Secret, marking a pivotal moment in the brand’s history and global ambitions.
Clothing: Language of the Soul
In Dual Mandate, IamIsigo proposes clothing as vessels for spiritual enlightenment, an opportunity to engage our emotions and energy through dress, the same way listening to music does, for example.
Renowned for creating rare pieces that she refers to as “wearable art”, the collection features materials transformed through handweaving, chainmail forging, fibre knotting and glasswork. There are highly textured raffia garments, including a striking black long skirt styled with a sleeveless green top and beaded gowns with colourful checkerboard patterns.
The series of standout looks continues through organic cotton pieces and matching sets in powder blue shades. Delicate in construction, these dainty materials are juxtaposed with heavier textiles, such as a floor-sweeping, oversized gown in a parchment colour that appears multiple times throughout the showcase in jackets and trousers.
“Each garment holds dual energies: hardness and tenderness, stillness and motion, presence and prayer. […] a reframing of what it is to wear, protect and remember”, the designer explains in a press release. This offering exemplifies Bubu’s experimental and raw approach. It’s bold, precise, and challenges the status quo of what African style looks and feels like. And it’s certainly not for everyone. However, the beauty of her clothing lies in the fact that, although her garments reinterpret African textiles in new ways and contexts, they remain grounded in cultural significance.
Accessories as Sculpture
From silver jewellery to belts and neck pieces crafted from beads, as well as innovative glass handbags in vibrant tones, accessories make a powerful statement in this showcase. The bags range from mini to oversized styles to suit different occasions.
Elsewhere in the collection, hats that are produced with South African milliner Crystal Birch are elongated to exaggerated proportions, while some are presented in double top style, reflecting the maximalist attitudes of African indigenous dress codes and accessorising.
With a defiant stance on the classical fashion system, IamIsigo’s universe reintroduces us to the technologies of ancestry. Methods and techniques that have existed longer than the business of fashion.
