This Is Us is a fashion revolution coming out of Lagos. Founders Oroma Cookey-Gam and Osione Itegboje have put their experience in luxury retail and graphic design into establishing a conceptual label wedded to promoting homegrown and traditionally indigo-dyed dyed cottons from the country’s northern regions. The resulting garments are simple, sustainable and beautiful.

For the duo’s first capsule they riffed on uniforms, and now comes their second, As Above So Below. For this, they’ve teamed up with irreverent artist Dodorowski aka filmmaker Abba Makama – he of award-winning movies Green White Green and Lost Okoroshi – to create a line of rainbow gothic t-shirts and one extraordinary painting.

We leave it to Cookey-Gam to explain the method behind their madness…

“When we got together with Dodorowski some months ago, we were both interested in authoritative religious institutions and ideologies and how they determine so much of what we as a people do, how we dress and how we behave towards one another. It was a satirical conversation about the power that they have over us and our spirituality. But whoever wants to discuss things that serious? It’s easier to have a private conversation or if you are bold enough, slap it on a t-shirt. If you are brave and confident, wear it on your chest. But if you are free enough, explain it.

“We are inspired by Abba Makama and his work with the surreal16 collective and think that his work is among the most provoking creative content coming out of Nigeria. They remind us that to be young means to be wildly imaginative and not giving two fucks about what mommy and daddy have to say about your desecration of their high ideals.

“The systems around religion, race, ethnicity and gender are constructs created by us to conquer - cliques or cults to help us navigate the world and come up on top. But what happens when the person on the losing side decides to call your bluff or better still, decides that they want justice?

“As Above So Below is a reminder that symbolism is only a matter of perspective and it’s only a matter of time until systems are overturned and new ones put in their place.”

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Published on 17/06/2020