“I want us to remember our names, put beauty in it.
My products are named after things we might forget,”
Oluwatobi, also a writer, says. He does extensive
research into folklore for his work.
Oluwatobi uses adire, aso-oke fabrics indigenous to
Nigeria, to design chair and stool covers, preserving
age-old fabric making practices. The fabrics have
garnered global attention: they were used by Nigerian
designer Maki Oh in her recent Fall 2018 NYFW
collection, and also worn by First Lady Michelle
Obama.
Oluwatobi is preempting history, too. When the Lagos
State government recently announced that it would be
phasing out the Danfo, a set of ubiquitous yellow and
black busses that are an indelible part of Lagos
culture, similar to the New York subway, Oluwatobi
designed a chair in the bus’s iconic colors.
Ogunseinde is feeding her products into hotel chains
and restaurants in Nigeria, while also building them
in other countries. She has also listed her products
on the American design products platform
WallpaperSTORE* hoping her homegrown goods
will become global desirables.
Oluwatobi’s story-driven products, which he
remarkably sells on Twitter, are popular with
Nigeria’s star-studded literary community. Novelist
and feminist icon Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is
currently visiting Lagos and is by now well-known for
her impeccable sartorial choices, often made by
Nigerian designers. Oluwatobi reckons there is
space in her collection for an Alaga chair.
This design class is tired of playing small, and they’re
sending their brands around the world. Marcus-Bello’s
largest order so far has come from a furniture collector
based in New York who found him online by typing
“contemporary African furniture“ into Google. He is
currently also designing modular furniture for a client
in Japan.
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