Meet Niyi Okuboyejo, the Nigerian designer putting a different and African spin on workwear. Featured in GQ.com, Niyi created his brand – Post-Imperial
to give people an insight to the art of using Adire for design and to
create African pieces that people won’t just admire, but actually buy
and wear.
In the feature, Niyi goes
into detail in how he left Nigeria when he was 14 and started a new life
in the United States. As he left, his mother told him how accepting and
nice it was in the States, however, that was not what he met. Schooling
in Houston, Texas “I learned very fast that being African was not cool.“
He continued, “I ended up wearing a lot of masks, pretending to be someone I’m not, and becoming friends with some very not-reputable people.” “But
I would lie to my friends and say that I was cutting class to smoke and
sell drugs, but I was really going to honors classes.“
Years later, he has created a fashion brand that heralds his Nigerian roots and is certainly
making him popular today. Speaking to GQ about his brand and how he
came about the brand name, he tells GQ writer, Jason Woolf – “It’s called Post-Imperial because it’s about the time after old regimes, and creating for today“. “It’s
cool to look at old photos and fantasize, but we should be creating our
own images. Twenty years from now, people should look at our time and
fantasize about it.
.“If you're looking to buy Post-Imperial products today, your best bet is the brand's online store. Most of the the label's brick-and-mortar retail accounts are currently in Japan, where men are always three steps ahead of even the most stylishly-inclined in the Western world. But Post-Imperial is set to land in stateside this fall at Unis, one of America's best stores. Niyi learned long ago that people may not be as kind and accepting in the United States as his mother said they would be, but now at 32-years-old, he's just as American as anyone. "I've seen both sides, and I appreciate both sides. And my experiences in America have helped shape my aesthetic," he says. As he grows older and experiences new things, Post-Imperial will continue to evolve. As Niyi puts it, "The dyeing process is just one part of what the diaspora has to say." It's easy to fall in love with the fabric-heavy story Post-Imperial is telling now, but we'll definitely be listening as the brand begins to say new things.
Source:gq.com
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