Long before Iamisigo found itself on global stages and prize shortlists, there were road trips.
Fabric in the back seat. Border crossings between Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. A mother who traded textiles and a child quietly observing, watching how cloth moved between people, places, and meaning.
“When we were gifting or doing Christmas wrapping, we were always wrapping fabrics or gifting fabrics as a present,” says Bubu Ogisi, founder of the contemporary pan-African fashion label. “For us, fabric was always a gift. It was part of ceremony.”
In Nigeria, textiles serve as a unifier and a means of individual expression. Families gather in the same fabric, a traditional Nigerian practice called aso ebi, with each person interpreting it differently. For weddings, funerals, and celebrations, cloth becomes a shared language. But for Nigerian-born, Ghana-raised Ogisi, what stood out wasn’t just the ritual but the repetition. “I thought, why does everyone always want to wear the same type of thing, even with the same fabric?”
She began to experiment early, working with her mother’s network of tailors across the continent to reshape garments into something more personal and enduring. From the beginning, her instinct resisted a consumerist, throw-away mentality. “People would make something, and they wouldn’t be able to wear it again,” she notes. “Whenever I was making mine, I always wanted to be able to wear it again.”
What emerged was something more than clothing. Pieces became what she describes as “memory banks”, garments that held time, place, and experience within them.
Today, that philosophy underpins Iamisigo, a brand that operates less like a traditional fashion house and more like an evolving system of research, craft, and connection.
Ogisi’s work draws on techniques spanning the continent: weaving, dyeing, brass casting, and glassmaking, often reinterpreted through unconventional materials, including waste. Long before sustainability became an industry buzzword, it was already embedded in the way she worked. “Africans have always been sustainable,” she says.
Her early practice began in second-hand markets such as Ghana’s Kantamanto and Nigeria’s Katangua, where she sourced discarded garments and reworked them into new forms. At the time, she recalls, the perception was very different. “Back then, everyone hated second-hand clothing; now, that story has changed.”
If there’s a thread that runs consistently through her work, it is systems thinking.
Before fashion, Ogisi studied computer science at Regent University, Ghana, a background that seems at odds with the intuitive nature of her designs. But for her, the connection is direct.
“It’s about understanding how to systematically programme ourselves within a specific time process,” she explains. “Seeing all the different variations that affect the process or the product in [that specific] time period.”
That way of thinking became especially important during her studies at Paris’ École Supérieure des Arts et Métiers de la Mode, where she obtained her master of arts in fashion business. There, Ogisi was confronted with fashion infrastructures that didn’t translate to the African contexts she knew. “They kept talking about high streets and all these things, and I’m like, we don’t have all these things; we have the market.”
Rather than replicating those established Western systems, she chose to build her own, developing strategies that responded to local realities and consumer preferences. Pop-ups in Lagos, Accra, and Abidjan. Exhibitions in Amsterdam, Paris, and Johannesburg. Physical spaces before digital ones.
“We love touching things,” Ogisi explains. “We love being physical and engaging. Before moving to a digital space, we [had] to have people believe in the brand physically.”
Even now, as global fashion continues to prioritise scale and speed, Iamisigo resists that pull. Its pieces are not designed for mass consumption but for longevity and meaning. “For me, it was never about making mass-market pieces; it was about who’s the collector, who wants to collect this piece.”
That perspective extends to how Ogisi sees the brand. Not as a product offering, but as a point of view. “I design for myself first,” she says with a laugh. “If I’m not designing for myself, then who else am I designing for? There’s no soul.”
It’s a statement that feels counterintuitive in an industry built on consumer demand, but for Ogisi, the brand is inseparable from the person behind it. “If you want to be part of this clan, [you need to] understand that the person who created this brand is designing from a deeper connection with the cloth, with the language of the material, with time.”
That clarity of vision is part of what has brought Iamisigo increasing international attention. Recently named a semifinalist for the LVMH Prize 2026, Ogisi returned to Paris, this time presenting her work on a global stage. “It’s been a full-circle moment,” she says. “I never knew I would come back here in this magnitude.”
Despite the accolades, Ogisi remains focused less on validation and more on building something lasting. Her vision for Iamisigo is not just about being a fashion brand but about being a knowledge system. One that continues to map materials, indigenous techniques, and relationships across the continent. “Maybe in 10 years, it’s a document,” she says. “A body of knowledge.”
In other words, an archive. Which, in many ways, is where this story began. With a quiet understanding that cloth can hold memory and that memory, if cared for, can shape the future.
From the April issue of Wanted, 2026
