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Background:
This week’s Lagos Fashion Week campaign is a series of portraits drawing on the tradition of African studio photography. They were shot by the creative director Daniel Obasi.
Few people have done more to shape how the world sees Lagos. Louis Vuitton asked Obasi to photograph the city for its Fashion Eye series. Beyoncé’s team brought him in to style the Lagos shoot for Black Is King. His work has run in Vogue Italia and The Face — and last year he joined the BoF 500.
Yet he built his career in a city where many creatives have to find their own way. Lagos, he says, produces remarkably resilient talent, partly because formal training is still hard to come by. Amed sat down with Obasi at his creative studio AMAH in Lagos to talk about how a city with so few easy paths forges so many extraordinary creatives, and what it would take to give the next generation an easier path.
Key Insights:
- Obasi traces Nigeria’s missing contemporary visual identity to a culture of leaving. Growing up, he says, there was a constant need to leave the country, which he links to post-independence politics and a civil war that was never properly addressed. “Aspiration became a way to heal as opposed to let us actually sit with the uncomfortable truth about what has happened,” he says.
- His work began as an answer to questions he couldn’t find images for. Researching references as a graphic designer, he struggled to find strong imagery of Nigeria. He also questioned why Nigerians equated luxury with foreign brands: “Why does luxury feel so detached for Nigerians?” He says francophone filmmakers such as Ousmane Sembène showed it was possible to tell contemporary stories without diluting their culture.
- He builds images from words, not mood boards. A copywriting course taught him to cut a paragraph down to a single word or phrase. He says he talks ideas out and sketches them with an illustrator before gathering references. “Before I even touch a mood board, I would write,” he says, adding that mood boards can give him creative block.
- Obasi sees Lagos’ resilience as both a strength and a cost. He recalls someone describing Lagos to him as a “creative factory” that builds strong people. The flip side, he says, is that many creatives have to find their own way, though he credits Lagos Fashion Week and Art X Lagos with filling part of the gap. “I know a lot of young designers who haven’t gone to fashion schools, but they’re making clothes at an extremely high standard,” he says, adding that he wishes they had an easier path through established training.
- His advice to young Lagos creatives is to keep going and look beyond home for support. Obasi tells them to learn from each mistake and move on. “The support you’re looking for oftentimes might not come from your immediate community,” he says. “It might come from somewhere else. But eventually they will come around.”
