Lagos-based Papa Oyeyemi is a designer that doesn’t follow trends but, perhaps unconsciously, paves the way for others.
“My designs are general. I don’t believe in gender or race, or categorizations like that. I believe we are human-forced, so I design for humans.”
Winter-spring-summer-fall collections? Those are not to be found in his most avant-garde studio Maxivive. “My designs respond to what I see around me. So I create collections for the Dry Season, the Wet Season, and for Harmattan, which is the very cold chilly season.”
Maxivive is one of Papa Oyeyemi’s brands that is changing the narrative of Africa on the global stage of fashion design. Well known for his experimental approach and off-beat twists on the familiar, his designs tend to evoke frowns and raised eyebrows here and there, but are easily embraced by those who are looking to breaking new ground.
For our 2018 Q3 lookbook that is part of Vlisco’s New Traditions campaign, Maxivive did what he does best, and took the classic, the well-known, to an other level.
“I had not worked with print for a long time, but Vlisco’s fabrics brought back a lot of memories. It was fun, like revisiting an old lovestory.”
“Every year, I work according to a personal theme. Funnily enough, this year’s theme was ‘Glistening’. The Vlisco fabrics I could work with, had a lot of shine, glitter and natural embellishments on them, which was very exciting for me.
When I received the fabrics, I dug into my archive and searched for ideas and designs from the past and reinvented them with these shining, glistening contemporary fabrics.”