Tolu Coker's Fall Collection Left Everyone Smiling
In London tonight, British-Nigerian designer Tolu Coker's runway brought Ghanaian street hawker culture to fashion week. Her fall/winter 2024 runway was lined with tires, piles of bananas, and food carts with bold colored umbrellas. Before the models emerged, a woman walked out from behind the curtain, speaking with the familiar voice of an enthusiastic saleswoman.
It's a scene she's familiar with: Coker's mother would street hawk in Lagos, Nigeria. For her sophomore show at London Fashion Week, the designer was inspired by the tenacity and resourcefulness of those women like her mom, who become distributors for international brands and yet still live in poverty. They have to live while lacking plenty and in turn, everything becomes valuable.
That mentality was seen in how Coker creatively layered clothing, with hoodies tucked under the sleek lapels of long wool coats and baby blue gowns worn over pants. Models wore multiple crossbody raffia bags at once. There were also denim patchwork mini dresses and bold colorful stripped corsets worn over dresses with matching ties. If the street hawker at the beginning of the show was trying to sell Tolu Coker's clothing, her work is more than done. I'm buying, and so was everyone else. I know that not just because I wanted to walk away from the show in a smart striped briefcase and matching mini, but also because everyone around me smiled the entire time. Her clothing is as vivid and vivacious as the beautiful diaspora she references.
Perhaps the thing that best describes the show isn't the joyful army of models that marched down the runway to a standing ovation from grinning attendees, but Tolu Coker's simple Instagram bio that reads: "Community. Craft. Cultures. Clothes." She does it all and she sure sells it well.
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