IAMISIGO is the rising star taking a dizzying journey across Africa

To know Bubu Ogisi of IAMISIGO is to understand that she is a savant of subversion. A commitment to swerving past established traditions features heavily in her work and the unlikely materials she produces them with. Within her collections, you’ll find raffias, barks, sheets of plastic, cannabis, and most recently, pieces of unevenly cut bronze metal strung together to form a gown – created as part of her collaboration with Victoria’s Secret, and worn by Naomi Campbell.

When it comes to her fashion shows, Ogisi also opts to do things differently. At Lagos Fashion Week, when many choose to showcase their walk on the event’s hallowed runways, Ogisi instead stages avant-garde immersive experiences. Last year, taking over the impressive white tiled foyer of Temple Muse, in the place of models the designer enlisted a dancer to showcase what she’d been working on. In front of an enraptured audience, the performer moved rhythmically around the space masked in a raffia IAMISIGO look, as a cacophany of indecipherable sounds played out in the background.

This year, she gathered Lagos Fashion Week attendees into a rundown furniture-making factory to debut new offering Shadows. As the models walked down the wood-shaving-lined runway – plumes of sawdust engulfing the room as the went – a singer with a haunting voice and mesmerising movements backdropped the whole thing. The tension in the air was palpable, as the audience took in what was a charged, almost ethereal moment. 

Now a standout of Lagos Fashion Week’s biannual outings, Ogisi founded IAMISIGO in 2013 as less your typical fashion label, and more an artistic practice, taking an artisanal and highly sustainable approach to her designs. Her clothes embody the multi-local experiences that have shaped her, but also the histories and stories she is constantly excavating and collecting. 

On a warm October morning just as the 2023 Lagos Fashion Week events were kicking off, Ogisi talked to Dazed about her work, being a part of Victoria’s Secret’s big comeback tour, and the work of rifling through histories for understanding.

Hey Bubu! It’s been a pretty big year for you. How are you feeling about it so far? 

Bubu Ogisi: It’s been a nice year. This year is a continuation of exploring different possibilities with other materials that we’ve worked with throughout the years.

I described you as a ‘savant of subversion’, do you agree with that?

Bubu Ogisi: I do.

Why is that? Where does it come from?

Bubu Ogisi: I just believe in following my spirit in terms of everything I create. I believe each material [I work with] harnesses a certain spirit in itself. And I think we sort of forget about that as human beings. We just think this cloth is just here, and there’s nothing more to it. And for me what I create and how I work, is about making people aware about what goes into creating, what goes into the materials that I work with. It’s also about figuring out how to get people to be mindful about spirits in themselves, but also spirits around us and in the materials and the objects that we have in our spaces.

“Each material [I work with] harnesses a certain spirit in itself. And I think we sort of forget about that as human beings” – Bubu Ogisi

Spirituality is typically an indefinable concept. How do you approach that within yourself and your work?

Bubu Ogisi: I’m just a human being. Vibing! But I would say I was really curious about different religions growing up. I’m really obsessed with figuring out what came before these religions – like Christianity – were imposed on us. 

That is so interesting because when I was watching your part of the Victoria’s Secret show, one thing that came to mind was how your work feels like a perpetual excavation of history. 

Bubu Ogisi: Yeah, I’m obsessed with history. 

When would you say was your first point of contact with that obsession?

Bubu Ogisi: So growing up here in Nigeria we had this class called social studies. It was my favourite subject because I found out that my surname meant something powerful through social studies. I learned that we were kingmakers. So an Ogisi means sky kings. Before the Oba [King] is chosen, the Ogisi’s sort of make that decision, they are sort of the middle ground between the Orishas, which are the gods, and then the king. It was interesting for me to learn about all these missionaries that came here, Mungo Pak and Lord Lugard, and I was just like, who are all these people? Why did we allow them here? So I think my love for history came about trying to understand where we came from and how these things happened to us and how we could also have allowed these things to happen to us. I am also obsessed with storytelling and how you can tell stories through fabrics. 

What’s your favourite book?

Bubu Ogisi: It’s called The Lost Cities of Africa by Basil Davidson and it talks about the systematic global migration through war and conflict but how the cradle of mankind starts in Kenya and then sort of moves westwards, towards West Africa, or downwards, and then there’s just a spread. It tells you a lot about history, about ourselves, about our people, about our personality, about our culture. It even talks about what people were doing in those times, like the Nok culture, the bronze culture, and how everything has sort of evolved into present-day situations and how nations evolved.

One of my favorite pieces on the concept of nationalism, particularly multi-nationalism, is by Taiye Selasi who makes the argument that nations are ultimately fictional, whereas experiences and cultures are the only constants.

Bubu Ogisi: Exactly, that’s something with fashion too. You see how fashion evolves but it’s always in this constant spiral movement that finds a way to go back, never staying in one place.

Let’s talk about the bronze dress you made for Naomi Campbell as part of your work with Victoria’s Secret…

Bubu Ogisi: That dress was originally meant to be really long. But we had to make it shorter because it would have been too heavy and mother would have killed me. So I had to shorten it especially because of the story that we’re telling, the idea of glorifying this feminine body. That dress was the most stressful dress I’ve ever made. We had to do the sample in bronze. It was heavy. We now had to go all the way from Benin City to Kenya. Then in Kenya, we cut everything individually from brass sheets. Plus the connectors. After that, I brought it back here to polish and galvanize in Nigeria. It wasn’t working. Then we now had to take it to Paris to finish it. Every time we moved with the piece we had to dismantle and reattach it and everything was done by hand each time, there was literally no machine at all. 

“I am obsessed with storytelling and how you can tell stories through fabrics” – Bubu Ogisi

So in total how many countries did this dress pass through? 

Bubu Ogisi: Five. I think it was one of my favourite pieces. It was also the most expensive piece I’ve ever made in my entire life – I couldn’t [have] afford[ed] to make it myself.

What did you love most about working on the VS project ?

Bubu Ogisi: What I love about this project is I went above and beyond my expectations and that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to push myself. I am obsessed with semi-functionality, and figuring out how to create pieces that are super heavy but still wearable. Maybe you can wear it for ten seconds or 10 minutes. I mean, that’s what happened with the glass dress Julia Fox wore. The dress was like 20 pounds and she wanted to kill me. Everytime she wore it, she would ask, can I just sit down for like two minutes? And then she’d have to take off the shoulders and then relax a bit and then put it back on. Because that dress was about the weight of water and Fox was representing Olokun or Osun, which is the goddess of the sea. And the idea of wearing water, I mean, the sea is filled with sand and sand is what makes glass. Obviously, water is not going to be nice. Density of water is super super heavy if you think about wearing it. That’s what I wanted to mirror and replicate.

What was the inspiration behind the latest collection [SS24]?

Bubu Ogisi: It’s an extension of our SS20 collection and an expansion of how we use materials in different ways. I wanted show the world how I’ve sort of redesigned the idea of the use of the material through time, because back in 2019 when I created that collection it was a different design and I was a different person and now in 2023 I’m in a different space, a different approach to design but I want to show how I can reinvent the material and the use of it but also the combination of these three together also.

Random, but what do you like about being Nigerian? 

Bubu Ogisi: Nothing. But seriously, I love our confidence. Language shapes personality, physique, and culture. You realise Yoruba is a very aggressive language. It’s really serious and that inherently brings out that energetic personality. We also love to dress up. I don’t know any other culture or country that is as interested in dressing as a form of protection but also as a form of life, as a way of life, as a way of being seen. I think dressing up is our therapy, because that’s the only thing we know how to do to look good and to feel good and to keep moving with the sound, with the music,  arts, movies, film, and fashion.

What’s your favorite city in the world?

Bubu Ogisi: Nairobi. I think maybe it’s the energy there that has drawn me to it. It’s a really exciting place whenever I go there. I feel very at home, at ease. 

Are you a traveller who seeks out different ways of being or do you retain your own sense of self? 

Bubu Ogisi: I mean, for me, it’s both, because when I get to these places, I want to immerse myself with the culture. I’m not going there to be speaking English all the time. I’m trying to go there, and if I know a bit of their language, I’ll make an effort and also try and learn also. I think languages sort of decolonise the mind. 

Let’s talk about materials….

Bubu Ogisi: We’ve worked with raffia, we’ve worked with plastic, we’ve worked with cannabis, hemp, wool. I think materials have different spirits and each body of work invokes a different story at the same time for me.

Is the diversity of raffia why you keep returning to it in your work? Raffia is almost synonymous with an IAMISIGO design now.

Bubu Ogisi: I wouldn’t say Raffia is our main one, but it’s definitely one of my favorite pieces because if you look at old African architecture, you see that everything was created with Raffia, even outside of Africa. 

Fascinating. What’s your go-to midnight snack?

Bubu Ogisi: Sweets. 

Any current obsessions?

Bubu Ogisi: I’m currently obsessed with agave. This is because of the idea of how that plant in itself creates tequila. You know what they call tequila? It’s the spirits. And when you drink the spirits, you also become a different spirit. 

What’s your favourite thing to watch on TV?

Bubu Ogisi: The Real Housewives franchise.

Stop! Are you watching the Real Housewives of Lagos? 

Bubu Ogisi: Oh my god, I think that’s the best one.

Do you have a favourite housewife?

Bubu Ogisi: I went to school with Choma Ikokwu, and we were friends in school. So it’s so cool to see how she has stood by her nature up to now. I’m like, yes girl, this is exactly how Choma was in school. She was so troublesome and confident and she is killing it with fashion.

What’s your most favourite thing to do when you’re in Lagos?

Bubu Ogisi: My favourite thing when I’m in Lagos, is to go outside of Lagos. I love going to visit different parts of Nigeria when I am back in Lagos. I like to visit Osun State, Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Ogun States, Delta State, Benin City. Lagos is fun for partying and enjoyment and the beach. 

What’s your go to when you have a night of insomnia or you can’t sleep at night? 

Bubu Ogisi: Reality TV. It’s either Real Housewives or Love and Hip Hop, Miami or Atlanta. I mean to be honest, really and ideally, I will usually watch documentaries. There’s this amazing one called so Expensive. It talks about the most expensive pieces and like the most expensive dye or the most expensive silk in India.

What’s the one thing that you cannot travel without? 

Bubu Ogisi: My collection of glasses.