ABAGA Velli
The design duo, Adémidé Udoma and Diallo Nehimiah Hasmat-AIi, behind London-based brand ABAGA Velli, started working together in 2019, and that relationship flourished into them starting a label together that united their appreciation for the African diaspora.
“We felt a lot of diasporan-led brands were great in their own respective ways, but sometimes the attention to detail was left lacking in contrast to the hype focus,” said Udoma, who comes from a tailoring background. “For us, we always wanted to build something that was based solely on attention to detail culture and storytelling, rather than the streetwear-hype type of approach,” Udoma said.
He credits the designer Michael Browne for showing him the ropes. Browne has his own eponymous label and was the former cutter at Chittleborough & Morgan.
Their debut collection, titled "All Roads Lead to the Horn," is a tribute to growing up in an African household. Udoma would often accompany his mother to the tailor for wedding clothes: “My mother's tailor is not necessarily seen as a luxury in Nigerian culture, it's very much a functionality, whereas, in England, that's a big deal to have your own personal tailor.”
While the collection is inspired by the African diaspora, the brand has eschewed using wax prints by concentrating on tailoring and utilitarian style pieces for a street attitude attribute. Udoma is most fond of the denim wrap jacket for sentimental reasons, as it was one of the first pieces he ever designed.
The design pair have worked with sustainably approved fabric factories to source their materials, routinely using denim, seersucker and cotton from Japan for the garments. “The price point is a bit higher because of it, but that's something I care about rather than just cutting the price,” he explains, revealing that all the buttons used throughout the collection are recycled.
Udoma directed and wrote a film around the collection that features musicians Mink and John Glacier. The short film uses extracts from Brazilian critical thinker Paulo Freire about education. “Education is equally about the student teaching the teacher as much as it's about the teacher teaching the student,” he said, comparing his love for clothing to the tailors he has met over time who have taught him new things.