Torishéju Dumi is a celebrated fashion designer whose work has featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, Zendaya wore her gown during Dune: Part 2’s press tour, supermodels Naomi Campbell and Paloma Elsesser walked in her debut show at Paris Fashion Week and she was on the cover of British Vogue with Tolu Coker and Priya Ahluwalia where they were called ‘Sustainability Trailblazers’. This is among the many things that Torishéju has achieved and it all started with her love for drawing and painting.
“I love just using my hands and crafting things out of my hands. I just thought it was quite amazing.”
After an art and design foundation in Leicester, Torishéju joined BA Fashion Design Technology: Menswear at London College of Fashion (LCF). She chose LCF because she wanted to learn the basics of garment construction and make clothes.
“It was a great experience. I loved learning about pattern cutting because I can design.”
During her undergrad years, Torishéju expanded her capabilities by interning with Dazed & Confused Magazine and Philip Lim. These experiences have helped her in adding depth to her design process.
“When I work, it's not just about the base elements of garment construction and how it looks and feels on the body. It's about going deeper, building a world and telling a story.”
A common theme in Torishéju’s journey so far has been making things happen instead of waiting for them. A good example of that is ‘Burn the Man’, the show Torishéju and her peers put together for their graduation when they weren't selected for the showcase. It was a bold move and generated a lot of noise during the London Fashion Week in 2018.
Keeping up with that tradition, when she wasn’t selected after applying for an MA at Central Saint Martins (CSM), Torishéju wrote to the course leader demanding an explanation. Fabio Piras met with her gave her an advise that she still abides by. Fabio said,“You need to know what you don’t want to understand what you want.” He asked her to work with someone and come back and tell him what she wanted. She took the advise and interned with Ann Demeulemeester and the next year she was accepted for an MA at CSM.
After her MA at CSM, Torishéju worked on her first collection – MAMI WATA. The name of the collection comes from ancient traditions and mythology of Nigerian culture. It means ‘Mother of Water’ and refers to a waterborne spirit that can appear as man or a woman. Transformation and adaption are the key ideas behind the pieces of this collection which appear black but take on different colours at different angles. Pieces from this collection were bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute for the Sleeping Beauties exhibition.
Storytelling is at the heart of Torishéju’s collections. Everybody loves a story and Torishéju wants to give that to the world with her designs. It’s more than just making the clothes, she wants to build worlds around them and create meaningful pieces that speak to the people wearing them.
“World building and storytelling is very important and having my point of view as a woman of color, because in the industry, if you're a certain race or color, they expect you to design a certain way. I don't know why people see it like that and because there's never been that much representation in fashion of women of color, and the women of color that can design have different themes and different things, inspirations and different outlooks of design.”
Her next collection, Fire on the Mountain, which debuted at the Paris Fashion Week, finds its inspiration in a nursery rhyme that her mother used to sing when they crossed the road. The pieces in the collection were meant to evoke a sense of power and strength.
“In the time we're in right now, it's almost like the world is on fire and we're still running and rushing to places. That was the energy that I wanted to evoke through the collection.”
Torishéju will be at the Paris Fashion Week again this year showing off calendar on 1 October. Comparing it to the collection from last year, she said this one will be more serious and yet whimsical and it will be something that will make us think.
Persistence and hard work have played an important role in Torishéju’s achievements. And now, she knows what she doesn’t want to do. She doesn’t want to work for brands that don’t inspire her. She doesn’t want to work with people or organisations who don’t understand the energy and effort that she puts into every piece of work that she does no matter how small. And that’s also her advise for young creators:
“Definitely what Fabio told me, you need to know what you don't want to know what you want in life. Love what you're doing, love your friends and your family. Have respect for people in the industry and always know when to just walk away from situations and be like, nah, that's enough for me. Just keep on pushing because you'll get there eventually.”