Tia Adeola (Q9333)
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Tia Adeola is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Tia Adeola |
Tia Adeola is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
In lieu of a show, Tia Adeola decided to create a short video to launch her spring 2024 collection, which she premiered at an intimate dinner hosted during NYFW. During a preview at the Black in Fashion Council Discovery Showroom, Adeola explained that her tight spring lineup was an interpretation of her own personal growth. “This collection is about transformation,” she said, nodding to the butterfly appliqués spread throughout most pieces in the lineup. “The butterflies represent growth and hope.”Up until now, Adeola has run her business strictly as direct-to-consumer, but she’s looking to start working with stockists this season. She’s only 26, but has garnered enough attention for this to be a possibility moving forward. Adeola mentioned that her signature ruffle separates remain her top sellers, and there’s enough in this idea for her to expand across categories. As she enters this next stage, she would benefit from tightening her production and finding more finesse. Her eveningwear could use better finishes—baby hems over serged edges would be a start—and she should hold on developing her menswear until she’s buttoned up the women’s. Adeola has potential, but like the butterflies in her collection, she might need a little more time in her cocoon before spreading her wings.
15 September 2023
Tia Adeola returned to New York this season after showing her resort 2023 collection in her hometown of Lagos, Nigeria. “It feels amazing,” she said pre-show about her return to the city. “New York welcomed me with open arms when I moved here in 2016 and I wasn’t as confident. I wouldn’t have dared make the same clothing I make now had I stayed in Nigeria.”Adeola’s designs are sensual in their balance between soft and sexy. They’re revealing, sure, but the designer is hopeful that she’ll be known for her cut and design rather than solely for her knack for sexiness. At her show in Nigeria, she shared her frustration with the no-nudity rules Lagos Fashion Week enforces, so this time around her collection is built around the idea of conservatism. “Since I started making clothes, there’s been a lot of discourse on the topic and nudity in general, and I just wonder why we have so much to say about how women choose to display their sexuality and power?”It’s true that bareness is trending. Exposed midriffs, micro mini skirts, and barely there looks have all been topics of discussion post-pandemic. But rather than covering up, Adeola doubled-down on her signature intricate laces and frilly sheer silhouettes. She played with where to place sheer details and lace inserts, toying between covered and exposed—the dress in look three, for instance, is solid in the front but all lace in the back. Adeola’s request is clear: Focus on the beauty of the clothes in front of you and leave the way they engage with a woman’s body to the woman in question.
12 February 2023
Last Friday, Tia Adeola presented her spring 2023 collection in her home country of Nigeria during Lagos Fashion Week. “This show is my most special and dearest to my heart thus far,” she said over Zoom. “Just because my whole family lives here, and it was the first time I had them all at a show.”For resort, Adeola wanted to channel Lagos as she knows it, she said, while also remaining true to her sultry and romantic sensibility. This translated best via her color palette, which included a rich green as a nod to the Nigerian flag. Adeola “hates green,” but the pop of color was a welcome addition, breaking up the throughline of black and white ruffles, feathers, and transparencies carrying over from the spring collection she presented in New York in September. She expanded on the daintier ruffles she introduced for fall because she’s been wearing her own clothes more often, and this is what she’s gravitating towards. “In the past, what I was making was almost like a fantasy for me,” she said. Now that she feels more confident, she is starting to embody this fantasy herself.Adeola faced challenges in Lagos. “Nigeria is quite a reserved and religious country,” she said. “I’d never had so many constraints that affect design.” The city’s no-nudity rule made sending sheer looks down the runway without undergarments, as she’s done in New York, an impossibility. But this had its upside. The more covered-up looks, including the opening black dress and the draped frock in look 3, displayed a level of control Adeola could benefit from exploring further.The designer looked to make a statement with a green dress featuring the message “God Help Nigeria” and a crossed-out Nigerian police logo on a pair of pants. “There’s a lot to be done in terms of police reform in Nigeria, and I’ve never been the type to just sit back,” she said.Come February, Adeola will return to New York Fashion Week, though she’s looking forward to showing in Lagos again. “Lagos has an incredible emerging creative scene, and one of the biggest obstacles for us is the older generation,” she said. “I hope they invite me back and I can keep pushing and trying to break those boundaries and try to make things more acceptable so that the creatives to come after me don’t have these constrictions and can just create freely.”
2 November 2022
Tia Adeola dedicated her spring 2023 collection to the legacy of Manfred Thierry Mugler, one of her long-lasting inspirations. Her show notes indicated that she shares Mugler’s appreciation for film noir and she has always envisioned herself as a “burgeoning couture designer.”Adeola’s show started with a solo dance performance, followed by a voiceover of Nina Simone that culminated with the quote “To me, we are the most beautiful creatures in the whole world, Black people, and I mean that in every sense.” It set the tone for a romantic but daring collection. Adeola is known for her close-to-the-body confections and ornamental textiles. Embellishments like feathers and ruffles have become her signature. This season she leaned further into textile manipulations, which made her assortment more focused than in the past. The collection was at its most believable when she used knitted fabrics and textiles with stretch; they allowed her body-con cuts to hug as intended. She has an eye for placing cutouts, which was illustrated in pieces like the trousers with peekaboo details, but techniques like slashing sometimes yielded results that felt overworked.The Mugler inspiration was evident in the embellished textiles, though Adeola said that the couturier’s chiffon pieces were some of her main references. She wanted to replicate the way Mugler cut for a woman’s body, serving its curves and enhancing its shape. This is something Adeola has an eye for, and it will serve her well to continue to refine it moving forward.The show also included a run of menswear looks, though they felt a bit disconnected from the overall vision. Most interesting was a take on a classic ribbed tank top in a delicately knitted ribbed fabric; exploring more pieces like this might better connect both channels. She included some religious iconography as well—you’ll recognize an image of Black Jesus on a hoodie. She said this was a nod to her fall 2019 collection, in which she featured a print of a white Jesus. After some research over the past few years, she decided to reapproach it.Adeola is well liked within the emerging scene of fashion-philes in New York City. The energy at her show was vibrant and came even more alive when Beyoncé’s “Heated” came on toward the end of the presentation. Another indication of how popular Adeola is: Our conversation was cut short backstage when her friends were leaving the venue, and naturally she wanted to join. Must have been one great after-party.
10 September 2022
A harpist greeted guests at Tia Adeola’s fall 2022 show. The serene melodies accompanied a front row full of friends and fans wearing the designer’s feathered midi- and minidresses. Against the gilded backdrop of the Prince George Ballroom, you might have thought you were in heaven. But Adeola is well aware that fashion—and life—isn’t always paradise. For her first collection in a year, she wanted to bring up theEnd SARS movementin her native Nigeria. After posting about it on social media, she was encouraged to halt discussing it because of the potential for her family in Nigeria to be in danger as a result of her activism.“With this show, I thought, I am going to say how I feel,” she said backstage afterward. On the runway, her angelic, Renaissance-inspired silhouettes with ruffles, cutouts, and plenty of sheer were accompanied by messages directed at SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad), a controversial police group that has been widely accused of abusing its power in Nigeria and whose use of force has resulted in numerous deaths. A graphic on a backless slate slip dress read, “You were supposed to protect us.” Another read “Sorrow. Tears. Blood.”What Adeola does well is interlace her love of truly beautiful, sweet, and elegant things with a potent message. The crowd of well-wishers that gathered to embrace her after the catwalk is a testament to that. Will they reach for garments printed with Adeola’s most pointed barbs? If not, the ruffle-trimmed leggings and newly launched menswear—camp shirts and covetable flares—will turn customers onto her look.
11 February 2022
Beauty and elegance are always at the core of Tia Adeola’s work, but her message of Black beauty holds a special resonance in 2021. After the many racial injustices of the past year, Adeola says she “wanted to put out something beautiful, and show Black bodies from a lens of luxury and fantasy.”She took the year to design what is surely her strongest and most beautiful collection yet. Finding inspiration in the world of Marie Antoinette and her ladies at the Petit Trianon, Adeola transferred the queen’s pastel palette and love of decadence to a contemporary wardrobe worn in her look book by an all-star cast of Black women. Rapper Flo Milli reclines in a chaise wearing a pearl-strewn corset; vocalist Paloma Ford holds court in regal blue silk. In the end, Ford duels in her luxurious outfit—proof a woman can do anything a man can, and be better dressed too!Ruffles are Adeola’s signature, and here they are softened and elongated to better show off the wearer’s curves. She utilizes sheer materials hand-beaded with pearls, long white feathers, or peach-colored flowers to add demi-couture touches to her feminine silhouettes. While Adeola sourced her fabrics from all over the world, her collection was made by craftspeople and artisans across New York City, her adopted home. The collection’s look book and film were also shot at an estate in New York, with the director Nina Meredith adding Parisian flourishes like harpists and elaborate floral arrangements. Milliner Leila Jinnah created elaborate headpieces, and Planet I made dramatic cat-eye sunglasses. The total picture highlights both the beauty of Adeola’s work and the beauty of collaboration, hammering home the message of the film,Le Noir Est Beau(“Black is beautiful”).
17 February 2021