Maki Oh (Q3261)
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Maki Oh is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Maki Oh |
Maki Oh is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
2013
designer
After taking a break from New York Fashion Week, Maki Oh designer Amaka Osakwe is back in town. With her distinctive take on artisanal Nigerian fabrics, the Lagos designer has amassed a small but highly engaged fan base. In her time off, Osakwe found some much-needed headspace. She began to see the wants and needs of the globally minded, artistically inclined women who wear her clothes with fresh eyes.There was indeed a subtle shift in direction evident in the clothes she showed today, from day to evening. As far as new inspiration goes, though, Osakwe always pulls from a disparate set of references. In fact, decoding the secret language of her prints is half the fun and has its roots in centuries-old Nigerian textile traditions: Consider that each of the patterns employed inadire, the indigo-dyeing technique she is known for, symbolizes something different.That said, the main touch point for the new collection—The Boondocks, Cartoon Network’s wildly popular animated adult sitcom—might still throw you for a loop. After binge-watching the show a few months ago, Osakwe was drawn to the unabashed flashiness of Thugnificent and Gangstalicious, the two fashion-obsessed rappers who appear in the series. It’s why the collection is particularly heavy on embellishments: pearls mostly, a modern alternative to old-school bling.Sprinkled along the shoulder of a slinky black jersey shirtdress and around the edge of shirt pockets, the effect was refreshingly chic. What’s more, those body-skimming LBDs had a sense of ease that some of her more complicated, architectural shapes have lacked in the past. Tiwa Savage, the hugely popular Nigerian singer who sat in the front row at the show yesterday evening, clearly had her eye on those new designs. With an Instagram following in the millions, Savage doesn’t take the platform she’s been afforded for granted. She understands that when it comes to representation, fashion choices matter. With a new focus on evening, Maki Oh has the potential to be an indispensable resource for this new generation of socially conscious red carpet stars.
10 September 2019
There are more foodies working in fashion than you’d think. Maki Oh designer Amaka Osakwe is one of them. The inspiration for her latest collection came from hanging out at hole-in-the-wall joints known asbukasin Lagos, Nigeria, Osakwe’s hometown. “They’re usually run by women. And there is a funny saying that the women who are sweating the most make the best food!” she said cackling.Osakwe often uses her collections to reexamine the notion of sensuality and the nuances of the female form—vulnerable and strong. She drew inspiration from hand-packaged street food for the knotting and wrapping techniques that cinched traditional caftans in the most flattering places. There was a welcome sense of lightness injected to the clothing, and tank dresses were trimmed with transparent mesh. Her tees were also spliced with mesh panels and featured graphics that were quite literally swiped from the menu. “Those prices were on a chalkboard yesterday,” she said.Hand-dyed indigo prints, known as Adire in Nigeria, have always been Maki Oh’s secret sauce. This season she’s expanding the scope of her production capabilities with the help of Ogun State, the region where these ancient traditions originated. And that opens up the potential for exponential business growth. Though Osakwe has put race front and center with the all-black castings of her shows, today was the first time that she represented gender fluidity—still a very taboo subject in Nigeria—on her runway. Gorgeous model Richie Shazam, who identifies as nonbinary, was among the new faces in the lineup. “There are so many different colorful characters to observe on the scene, it’s a real slice of life,” she says. “It was important for me to celebrate the full spectrum of society—after all we all breathe the same air, eat the same food.” Though Osawke has made reviving ancient fashion traditions her priority, she’s clearly committed to pushing the conversation around gender forward, too.
13 September 2018
Amaka Osakwe has a deliciously cheeky sense of humor. The Nigerian designer titled her latest Maki Oh collectionAla Koba, which roughly translated in English means “someone who gets you into trouble.”Osakwe isn’t one for in-your-face sexiness, though her clothes do possess a stealth allure, or what she calls “lazy sensuality.” She decided to explore the idea of lingerie dressing and what a woman wears behind closed doors for Fall.If you were expecting a parade of slip dresses, though, you’d be mistaken. Osakwe opened the show—her first runway presentation at New York Fashion Week—with a coat covered in her trademark swirling batik pattern, a Yoruban dye technique known asadire. It was hardly what you might call revealing, though the curvilinear shape alluded to the body in a flattering way. The designer introduced tailoring into her line for Spring, and this season she honed those new skills—in addition to that great opening coat, there was an impressive version in black that unraveled on one side with a neatly scalloped peekaboo cut-out. The check blazer in the lineup was far better than your average nine-to-five wardrobe, too, with pin tucks that gave the effect of corsetry and an unexpected printed sleeve that added a refreshing counterintuitive touch.The designer made more direct references to pretty little underpinnings with her use of lace, splicing her floaty dresses with a shot of naughtiness. That said, it was the more modest notions of a date night look that resonated the strongest, including a rich blue silk dress with a polka-dot motif and tiny buttons that could be done at the wearer’s pleasure. Pieces like these are likely to attract the international attention that this made-in-Africa label deserves.
15 February 2018
Maki Oh designer Amaka Osakwe tends to conjure elaborate tales from a faraway dreamland for inspiration. This season, however, she drew on experiences that were far closer to home, circling back to her childhood in Lagos, Nigeria. Fond memories of playing dress up in mom and dad’s closet came through in the exuberant collage of patterns and slightly oversize tailoring that was finished with girlie ruffles. There were chic ruched tulle frocks in happy colors—lemon yellow and tomato red—what Osakwe described as “auntie-give-me-cake dresses,” a colloquial phrase referring to the frothy party looks kids wear to curry favor with adults at big family gatherings in Nigeria.The fun continued with a nod to schoolyard games such as hopscotch (orsuweas it is known in Osakwe’s hometown) and the smudgy chalk squiggles of the playground showed up on tiered, ruffled shirts, button-downs, and cropped pants. Those charming hand-painted, inky lines were created withadire, a Yoruban hand-dyeing technique. Osakwe has turned to various traditional Nigerian textiles in her work, including raffia and silk fringing, but her use ofadirehas become a compelling signature, one she was wise to hone in on this season. The subtle, bluesy mood of her work is entirely different from the bold wax prints that most fashion lovers associate with Africa, even if that world-renowned fabric is rarely made on the continent—more often than not, it’s mass-produced in China. Osakwe has been praised for bringing a fresh perspective on Nigerian design, and rightfully so: Her point of view is undoubtedly one of a kind. But beyond expanding a global creative reach, this talented young designer is committed to bringing time-honored production values back to their rightful home. With her 100 percent made-in-Nigeria line, she’s helping to keep centuries-old traditions alive and kicking, and that’s hardly child’s play.
16 September 2017
Lagos-based Maki Oh returned to New York Fashion Week this season after a lengthy hiatus. Oh is—rightfully—one of Africa’s most celebrated designers, and her latest outing reaffirmed her position as one of the most interesting young designers from anywhere, full stop. Oh’s collections don’t look like anyone else’s, partly because she has a sui generis way of fusing Nigerian and conventional Western aesthetics, and partly because she takes an idiosyncratic approach to making fashion. Put simply, she likes to tell stories.And it’s refreshing to be told stories, through clothes, that haven’t been repeated umpteen times before. To wit, this season’s narrative, which found Oh recounting the adventures of a middle-class girl, loosely based on a seamstress who works in her studio, boarding a bus—the kind known in Lagos as a danfo—and crossing the sprawling city to visit her lover. The bright yellow danfo provided Oh with one of the pops of brightness in her palette. It also inspired the stitching of slogans like “No Condition Is Permanent” on several garments, as, according to Oh, these vehicles are often emblazoned with advertising and graffiti. The colors, textures, and patterns of Lagos were likewise represented here, with generous helpings of both signature Maki Oh adire prints and slick leather and sparkly metallics that were new to her brand vocabulary.As you’d expect of a booty call–themed collection, this one was sexy. There was something especially louche about the holes that Oh cut into certain garments, but the tone was reflected, too, in touches like netting and bandeau tops. There was even a hint of postcoital dishabille in Oh’s robe coats, made from toweling fabric. These latter items were, like the collection as a whole, eccentrically appealing, though their naive construction spoke to a difficulty Oh seems to be having in gaining traction in the marketplace. Many of her garments have a very fine finish to them, yet there’s a certain lack of polish in other looks that may give retailers pause. Having said that, there are numerous designers based in traditional fashion capitals who work very hard at achieving the handmade feel that Oh comes by naturally, by dint of her production methods. Her clothes’ imperfections can be read as a sign of their integrity—which is its own kind of luxury good.
17 February 2017
Amaka Osakwe is never one to shy away from difficult subject matter, preferring instead to spin it into the rich, multilayered collections that have earned her a cultish fan base, and a place in the wardrobe ofFLOTUS. For Fall, the designer posed the question:What does it mean to be a black woman?“[The collection] is quite dark, actually—as usual,” she laughed on a call from her native Nigeria. Mulling on that identity in all its nuance and power, as well as tropes like the angry black woman, Osakwe turned an introspective eye on the idea of silenced voices. “There’s really nothing I can do but be proud of who I am and just keep trying to make people see the beauty in me and my culture and all of what I stand for,” she offered. And beauty there was here, aplenty.Maki Ohclothes have always been marked by a lush mix of fabrications, incorporating traditional Yorubanadiredyeing techniques. Here they came to life in a handful of prints, heady swirls, geometrics, and an abstracted eye print. That last one nodded to the idea of awareness, the eye motif recurring in several forms throughout the collection. It cropped up as black-and-white paillettes, dappled all over a royal purple midi dress and teddy bear separates, and as giant, patchworked, almost mod-looking shapes on an A-line, zipper-front number.A lot of Osakwe’s ideas here served as hyper-feminized takes on traditional Nigerian women’s clothing. There was something particularly compelling in the idea of cloaking one’s canniness in seemingly nonthreatening, even ladylike, ways. Consider flounced, off-shoulder gowns, or layer upon layer of airy tulles. Still, it wasn’t all so delicate—tailoring in forest green velvet married masculinity and femininity to a stunning effect, while Osakwe’s pearl-studded camo prints spoke volumes, even dotted as they were with glossy little pearls. That same embellishment turned up as trim on a pair ofadiretrousers. Those dyed fabrics put Osakwe in mind of something else this season, too: the Nigerian wordehn. It’s roughly equivalent to “oh” in English, but can stand in for everything from “yes” to “I hear you” to “I hate you,” as Osakwe tells it; in just a few minutes she had generated a list of about 30 potential definitions. Likeehn, adireis fraught with nuances largely lost on the casual eye. Nuance aside: Osakwe’s message this season could hardly have been stronger—or lovelier.
25 March 2016
Eh, what’s the point? That, in a nutshell, was the thought galvanizing Maki Oh’s latest collection. Lagos-based designer Amaka Osakwe likes to draw on unexpected themes, but a tribute to human futility may be her most far-fetched yet. Osakwe was thinking about Sisyphus, she said, and Camus’s quote, “Our life is built on the hope for tomorrow, yet tomorrow brings us closer to death,” and the Yoruban trick, among parents, of sending their bored kids around to nearby homes in search of “arodan,” a thing that doesn’t actually exist. The Almodóvar filmTalk to Herand thekaruwaicourtesans of northern Nigeria were bouncing around Osakwe’s headspace as well, making for a rich brew. Which, in the end, was the point: Life may be futile, Osakwe’s collection posited, but it is also deliciously full.Osakwe’s engagement with existential absurdism freed her up. There was a new sense of looseness in the silhouettes, witnessed particularly in Osakwe’s terrific, fluid trousers, and a refreshing playfulness found in the collection’s rather daffy approach to embellishment and print. Scalloped edges, thread embroidery, a dash of distressed denim, graphic appliqué, feathers, fringe, Lurex mesh—Osakwe had at it, coercing coherence from the mix with her innate sense of discipline. She gave herself permission to experiment, in other words, but the overall effect was far from slapdash. And a few of her flourishes had a philosophical weight one doesn’t often discover in clothes: Note, for instance, the indigo teardrop print, which, when you peered inside the tears, revealed an underprint of delicate flowers. Osakwe is a designer with an urgent need for her clothes to mean something; this time out she encompassed that meaning in looks that were her most wearable yet. Why wear a relaxed, ruffled dress of geometric black broderie anglaise? Why not? Life is short. We take our pleasures where we find them.
19 October 2015
You know those improv shows, where the troupe onstage riffs sketches off random words people in the audience shout at them? If you didn't know better, you might have thought that Amaka Osakwe had borrowed that modus operandi for her latest Maki Oh collection. "Mermaids," Osakwe said, explaining her guiding concepts this season, "and appropriation." Mermaids. And appropriation? As it turned out, these two seemingly disparate nouns connected in the figure of Mami Wata, a folk deity in Osakwe's native Nigeria, whom she described as "keeper of virgins and goddess of the river." Mami Wata is an icon of relatively recent vintage, apparently; according to Osakwe, she emerged after an image of an Indian snake charmer made its way to Africa, where snakes have a close association with rainbows, "the serpent of the sky." Thus the snake charmer became a rain charmer, a vainglorious creature of the water. And this origin story got Osakwe thinking about other ways that Africans have appropriated stuff from abroad—for instance, the bright printed cloth that's a totem of African fashion, which Osakwe said was developed in Holland and, these days, is often produced in China and thereabouts.The ideas animating Maki Oh collections are never less than very interesting. And it was interesting, too, to see the ways that Osakwe interpreted her watery theme through these clothes, leaning on a palette of deep blues and greens and working a variety of wavelike effects into garments. The sculpted ruffles made for a particularly striking effect. Osakwe also introduced a number of reflective elements—mirror embroidery, for instance, and materials new to her, such as Lurex, with an iridescent sheen. Taken as a dissertation on her seasonal themes, Osakwe's work here was remarkably coherent and charged with intellectual appeal. That said, this collection lacked the straightforward appeal of Osakwe's previous outing: There were a lot of beautiful clothes here, but some of these looks came off a touch stiff and over-considered. The standout pieces stood out for their simplicity—a lean beige dress with one of those sculptured ruffles running along one sleeve, soft silk trousers topped with a blouse of floral guipure lace. Elsewhere, Osakwe showed nice development with her signature tailored skirts and dresses in mixed prints: The fact that these items looked familiar in no way diminished their appeal.
In the end, though the "mermaid" reference was the one that jumped out at you at first, Osakwe's ruminations on "appropriation" was really the key to this collection. Osakwe seemed to be working hard to appropriate new elements into her brand vocabulary—new shapes, new materials, new embellishments. No doubt she'll incorporate them more fluently the next time around.
26 March 2015
In the era of Hobby Lobby and ostensibly "good" and "bad" feminism, Amaka Osakwe's latest collection is the stuff of dreams: exquisite clothes rooted in sociological feminism. The designer's jumping-off points are always thoughtful (cerebral or even anthropological, some might say), but also utterly visceral. This season, which she's dubbed her "most serious," was no exception. For Spring, Osakwe probed the original meaning of the wordvirgin—a woman who had left her parents' home, was unbetrothed, and could take any lover she pleased—and its subsequent bastardization by a melee of factors, religious and patriarchal.The garments she's turned out here serve as an exuberant reclamation of the idea, measured parts femininity (plenty of powdery pink) and sophisticated hardness. A pencil skirt came coated in black glitter to the point of armor-like toughness and bearing an up-to-there slit; its message felt clear. A pair of adire prints served as an interrogation of two famed virgins' cultural legacies: One, a thorn pattern, alluded to the barbs often seen encircling the Virgin Mary's heart; a constellation design nodded to the astrological Virgo. Mary, that superlative virgin, reappeared throughout the collection. Asymmetrical necklines and oversize bow details (faintly cartoonish on their own but lovely in context) stood in as abstractions of her draped robes; cascading, knife-pleated chiffon panels represented bleeding. Maki Oh is also no doubt the only LVMH Prize-short-listed label to ever turn out a vulva print. It's an utterly elegant proposition in her hands.Many of the shapes were familiar territory for Osakwe: the boxy top, the midi, tapered shirtdress—it's the materials she's mixed up. Silk has always been a standby, but here she added rich cottons and dense, spongy honeycomb mesh. These clothes felt urgent, elegant, and wholly wearable, the kind of pieces women are sure to connect with, whether they know the backstory or not.
8 October 2014
Of all the names to turn up on the short list for the brand-new LVMH Prize, Maki Oh is perhaps the most surprising. Designer Maki Osakwe's presence on the list is richly deserved, but as a designer based in Lagos, she remains outside the range of fashion industry groupthink. That makes her something other than a usual suspect for a Paris-based fashion competition, but it also helps account for the utter distinctiveness of her work. Osakwe always premises her collections on a story, and this one, she explained, came from her imagining a woman at her mirror, reciting the song lyrics, "Tell me I'm the only one, even if you choke." As Osakwe went on to say, that vignette presents the question: Is this woman mad or not? And thus the collection toyed with themes of madness and un-madness, love and anti-love, and other states that fluctuate and are a matter of perception. All this was transmitted through Osakwe's most elevated and accomplished collection yet. This time out, she emphasized relatively easy silhouettes—a pair of track pants, a soft silk blouse, a lean tailored dress with some slouch to it. The clothes felt likeclothesrather than looks. Further, Osakwe really upped her textile game this season, developing a traditional Nigerian aso-oke material with Lurex thread; pulling luxe gobs of fringe out of selvedge; and translating prints, such as her Yoruba translation of those song lyrics, into hand-appliquéd lettering. There's a certain naïveté to Osakwe's work and you sense the hand of the artisan, but the intelligence and aesthetic sophistication guiding her process is so keen, the pieces never come off as artsy-craftsy. Well done.
6 March 2014
"It could be a paint splatter," said Maki Oh, describing one of her adire prints after her show today. "Or it could also be a splatter of blood, from murdering men." Welcome to New York, Maki Oh! The designer would be a welcome addition to our fair city's fashion week based simply on the fact that she makes absolutely lovely clothes. She would be an exciting new name on the calendar merely because she's based in Nigeria, and those absolutely lovely clothes mash up African and Western references in sui generis ways. But as it happens, Oh may benecessaryin New York: It's hard to think of another designer here who is using fashion, as Oh does, to evoke and interrogate female experience.This season, her collection told the story of, in her words, "women's confusion about their place in society." And the clothes marked a journey from demurely femme to boy drag. En route, there were looks that paid sidelong homage to the domestic realm, with apron shapes and gourd embellishment (gourds being a traditional kitchen utensil in Nigeria, Oh explained). And there were layered looks—some of the standouts here, in fact—that found Oh literally squishing extra fabric underneath fitted silhouettes, a metaphor for the ways women find themselves constrained. And then there were the reinterpretations of workwear and sports jerseys, the feminization of the masculine world, and yes, prints meant to look like spattered man blood. A heady mix of elements, for sure, but Oh handled it all with finesse.The clothes didn't seem overdetermined, and they had at least as much aesthetic as intellectual appeal. The ruffled tops and cutaway fringe dresses were particularly effective at sparking that feralI want that in my closet nowkind of need. And Oh's fitted dot and sheer-paneled dresses were so pretty, they short-circuited brain activity entirely.
8 September 2013
A fashion season can come to feel a lot like the movieGroundhog Day—running from show to show, you find that even very disparate designers will touch on many of the same themes. Not so Lagos-based label Maki Oh, which operates well outside the fashion hive mind. This time out, designer Maki Osakwe's starting point was a Nigerian hairstyling technique called threading, an inspiration she elaborated into her traditionaladireprints, including one of a girl with threaded hair, and hairlike fringe embroidery. As is her wont, Osakwe fused her Nigerian references with coolly elegant Western silhouettes, notably pencil-lean dresses; the standout look here was a velour sheath with inserts of sheer material that produced a seemingly magical hang. The circular necklines and seaming on other pieces echoed the effect. Elsewhere, Osakwe explored more laid-back cuts, executing boxy tees, lapel-free jackets, and pajama pants. Still, this was a typically natty affair, relaxed but not casual per se. Likewise, Osakwe's incorporation of heavier fabrics, such as the velour, and items fit for cooler weather, like the jackets, did nothing to diminish or distract from her unique point of view; Osakwe may be conceding to the seasonal needs of her increasingly international clientele, but she's doing it her own way.
21 March 2013
If designer Maki Osakwe based Maki Oh in New York City or in London, she'd be one of the most buzzed-about young designers around. Her point of view is unique and compelling. The clothes she designs are beautifully tailored, feminine, and elegant yet idiosyncratically modern. She knows how to make unexpected juxtapositions convincing. Her designs have been worn by the likes of Solange Knowles and Leelee Sobieski, which is truly remarkable given that she's actually based in Lagos, Nigeria. There will probably come a day when Lagos, teeming metropolis that it is, displaces London or New York as a fashion capital for emerging designers. Today, however, Lagos is a place where Internet outages are a daily occurrence. That Osakwe is getting noticed at all is a testament to her extraordinary talent and equivalent potential.Part of what makes Osakwe so interesting is the way her designs are informed by Africa. One signature of her brand is that it's dyed by hand using a traditional process calledadire. Another is her way of combining Western silhouettes and native materials and motifs—to wit, a lace-blouse-and-pencil-skirt set appliquéd with unsettling raffia eyeballs. Perhaps most significantly, though, Osakwe brings an African sense of clothes-as-storytelling to her collections: This season, for instance, her starting point was a story she made up about secrets. The eyes on Osakwe's clothes are meant to be unsettling: They'rewatchingyou. And it's no accident that the face cut into the fringe on Osakwe's terrific slipdress looks pissed off; that's the girl whose secret's been betrayed. Elsewhere, Osakwe picked up a traditional Nigerian print of spiraled squares, which was an allusion to the compounds where people live in rural Nigeria. These are places, she explained when she presented her collection by appointment, where it's impossible to keep secrets.And so on. You can either take an interest in Osakwe's stories or you can consign them to the same "interesting…but whatever" mental pile where you put information like the fact that Osakwe was also inspired by Cy Twombly this season, and Pina Bausch. Though the African-ness of Osakwe's clothes are a non-incidental part of their appeal, they're as much a mash-up of references and obsessions as that of any designer. The thing to put in your mental "must-know" pile is that Maki Osakwe deserves to be a star.
8 October 2012