The former lawyer turned designer Duro Olowu creates fashion moments on a resolutely human scale. Born in Lagos into a Nigerian Jamaican family, Olowu had a cosmopolitan upbringing, traveling to Europe and absorbing cultural influences ranging from album covers to Yves Saint Laurent. His tenacious curiosity, like his patternmaking, seems limitless—and his deep knowledge of photography has informed his fashion line.
Instead of flashy runway shows, Olowu prefers private viewings that allow him to discuss his patchwork dresses and jacquard coats with the coterie of cultural figures who wear his richly patterned designs. Like him, they appreciate clothes in a context that celebrates collecting antiques, paintings, and handicrafts over any proximity to trends or celebrity endorsements. Olowu has also curated exhibitions in New York, London, and Chicago. On each occasion, he staged a vibrant dialogue, juxtaposing photography and painting, or West African heritage textiles and the innovative fabric creations of contemporary sculptors.
The editor Dan Thawley recently spoke with Olowu from his studio in Mason’s Yard, in London. Olowu claims to have been a reluctant curator at first. Soon, however, he sensed a freedom in making exhibitions, the freedom to think about photography and fashion across genres and decades. The results offer a new way of seeing.
Dan Thawley: Duro, there are some things I am curious to ask you about your relationship with photography. I wanted to start with collecting.
: I always shy away from the word . But I have quite a lot of photography, just because it was always a lot more accessible. In the 1990s and even up until the mid-2000s you could come across something one had always wanted, like an early Samuel Fosso or a Luigi Ghirri. Back then a lot of photography was just
