MONDAY 11:37 PM SEPTEMBER 16, 2024 NORTH GREENWICH
The Nigerian-born, London-based designer Mowalola Ogunlesi doesn’t like to overcomplicate things. Her fashion shows, like the spectacle-cum-performance-piece that included cameos from Yves Tumor, Deto Black, Irina Shayk, and more, always begin with a feeling. “A lot of things I do just feel natural,” she told our fashion correspondent Lyas in this week’s Smoke Break. “Like, I don’t overly plan.” At Mowalola’s high-energy SS25 presentation, where models made to look like clones of the designer encircled the runway, we pulled her aside to find out what it’s like to be mother.
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LYAS: Mowa, That was your biggest show yet, right? That was insane. It was a full-on music show. I saw some of your influences: Michael Jackson, Dean Blunt…
MOWALOLA OGUNLESI: Peaches.
LYAS: Peaches!
OGUNLESI: And Young Thug. I don’t know, I feel like a lot of things I do just feel natural. Like, I don’t overly plan. Even the idea of what the show was, it just came together. I don’t put too much pressure on the things I want to do. I start with a feeling.
LYAS: What was that feeling?
OGUNLESI: I really just wanted to show out. I wanted to approach fashion in a new way. Last season was the first time I ever got to watch my show, and it was amazing, but I was like, “I want more.” Every time I do something I’m like, “I want more.” So it was just like, “Give me more.”
LYAS: Okay Britney.
OGUNLESI: Give me Mowa.
LYAS: Ooh. And the voice that says, “Mowalola.” That was so fab.
OGUNLESI: That been something I’ve been doing since my fashion week debut.
LYAS: It was my first time attending.
OGUNLESI: Oh my god, bitch. I work on the music with my friend Joey Labeija. The first show we ever did in 2019, that’s when we started it. And I was like, “Yeah, this is kind of raw,” so we just kept it like a running thing throughout.
LYAS: It’s good branding. And what was it with the Mowa doppelgangers?
OGUNLESI: You mean my clones?
LYAS: Yeah.
OGUNLESI: I mean, everybody wants to be me. [Laughs] I’m joking. I mean, I feel like a mother, and I feel like I emulate an energy that I feel like everyone should latch on to. Like, I want to see more of that in the world. I want to see more people going sideways. I want to see more explosions.
LYAS: We saw that, but it’s also community coming together at your show, and I think that’s very beautiful. I don’t see that often.
OGUNLESI: Well, everyone I work with, I truly love and I’m truly inspired by, from my friends who are supporting me, Deto and Chi, to Paris, who did the choreo, Hayley with the styling, and Chiara, my amazing producer. I feel like I’m creating how I want to create so I’m just excited about the future. Like, I saw this being what it was and it was what it was, so I’m just like, “Bring it on.”
LYAS: Bring it, Mowa. Okay, the cigarette has died.