Following in the footsteps of fashion designers Charles Jeffrey, Molly Goddard and Richard Malone, the work of Mowalola Ogunlesi is being displayed in an immersive exhibition at NOW Gallery in London. Making use of slick vinyls, high-shine hand-painted leathers and the skimpiest of proportions, a Mowalola piece pulsates. But this young Nigerian designer doesn’t just create sexy clothes, she designs the world that she wants to see – one of liberation and self-expression. As such, the world she has curated at NOW Gallery for Silent Madness is positively super-charged, draped with electrifying fabrics and filled with neon-splattered mannequins playing instruments and standing in pools of tar. “My world is celebrating life and love and self-love,” she reveals. “But I also just love darkness and – I don’t want to say demonic energy – but maybe monstrous energy, the idea that you don’t need to go with what society wants you to be like.”

Music is crucial to Ogunlesi’s work, with her acclaimed Central Saint Martins 2017 graduate collection ‘Psychedelic’ inspired by 1970s Nigerian rockers and petrolheads. She also worked with New York DJ and producer Joey LaBeija to create soundtracks for both her AW19 Exposed and SS20 Coming for Blood shows, which stayed with her London Fashion Week Men’s audience long after the last model had walked. Needless to say then, there is an all-important sonic element to the exhibition, turning the visitor into a DJ with a multi-channel soundtrack that can be individually curated. “They can skip through each track or go back to one or listen to one over and over again, it’s really up to them,” she explains. “Each person can experience it in a different way.”

This feels apt given how much this talent prizes self-expression. “I want to disregard everything and start from scratch with what people actually want. Things become better in the world when we embrace who we really are and we're not afraid of each other,” she says. “I want to show black people the way that I see us – I want to celebrate who we are and just be happy. It’s important for me to focus on creating the kind of media that I want other young black boys and girls to see. I feel like if I was growing up now with all of these different images of blackness, it would have changed the way that I felt about myself.”

For SS20, when exploring the horrific intensity of falling in love, Ogunlesi also dissected the pain of being black in a predominantly white space. One piece, a white leather dress with bullet shots painted onto it, grabbed headlines when worn by Naomi Campbell. “The worst thing you could imagine happening to yourself is getting shot,” she explains. “That is how it feels most days for a black person moving through society and just trying to survive.”

Tackling such heavy subject matter in her work means that a collection takes a lot out of her so she isn’t certain that she will stick to traditional fashion week schedules, despite her success as part of Fashion East. “I would love to do a collection and people enjoy it for four years, the same way as someone makes an album and people keep listening to that album,” she says. “I don’t want to just make clothes for money and keep producing when I don’t have to. It’s very emotionally draining to put so much of yourself into a collection every six months, it’s not sustainable for my own mental health.”

Designing for women and men, Ogunlesi naturally breaks down broader stereotypes around masculinity, too. “There’s more than one way for someone to be a strong man. Being vulnerable and unapologetic about who you are is probably the biggest strength you can have. If we push and champion those things, it's so much better for everyone.”

Her approach has won her heavyweight support from the likes of Skepta (who performed at the opening night of the exhibition), Dev Hynes, Drake, Kanye West and Solange Knowles, and she collaborated with Nike on a collection for Nigeria's World Cup team. Now she has an exhibition under her low-slung belt, there are plenty more avenues through which she can spread her effervescent messages. “I just like making things that I envision, and clothes are a really good medium, but I'm really excited to design other things and to not be in just one bubble.”

Silent Madness by Mowalola is on view at NOW Gallery, London, until 19 January 2020

Mowala is featured in issue two of Nataal magazine. Buy a copy here

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Published on 07/12/2019