Many women can look back at a single piece of clothing that changed their life. For designer Busayo Olupona, the search for clothing that would resonate with her emotionally just as much as it did physically led her to found her namesake label, Busayo.
Since 2011, when Olupona first began working on her brand (which officially launched in 2013), Busayo has been explicit about celebrating the Nigerian diaspora through contemporary fashion. Vivid hues, intricate patterns, and luxe fabrics are the signature elements that make up a Busayo creation, many of which have graced the likes of Angela Davis, Ava DuVernay, and Madonna. In the beginning, though, the designer was simply searching for everyday workwear (for her former nine-to-five as a lawyer) that didn’t feel quite so drab, while also yearning for a deeper connection to her roots in Nigeria.
“When I started working at the law firm and was moving into my professional life and could frankly afford to start flying to Nigeria on my own, that kind of thing, I was really yearning for community over there,” says Olupona, who was born in Boston and then lived in Ilé-Ifẹ̀, in southwest Nigeria, until she was 11, when her father’s job took her family to Davis, California, where he taught African religion. “It’s a funny concept to think this [other country was] supposed to be my home, but I didn’t have friends [there]. I didn’t have community. But I still felt compelled to keep going back. I was really floating in this dual purpose, where I wanted to keep going back to Nigeria, and I knew that if I found something to do while I was there, I could maybe open up this whole other world.”
On her annual visits to the West African country, Olupona started apprenticing with local artisans to learn how to dye fabric. She claims at first the lessons were solely an excuse to get out of the house, “so I wasn’t just sitting at home with my aunt to hang out.” But eventually, they blossomed into what would become Busayo: a celebration of the local artisans that fuel Nigeria’s creative economy, and a sartorial love letter to the heritage that Olupona so deeply wanted to feel more connected to.
Nigerian style, of course, isn’t limited to a single garment. In the Olupona’s eyes, it’s about the art of adornment and fully curating a true ensemble—it’s a styling theory seen in her look books and brand editorials, with models wearing not just Busayo’s signature dresses and flouncy skirts, but also Nigerian jewelry and traditional hairstyles that span generations.
“Nigerian style is ostentatious. It is loud, it is colorful, it is over-the-top. There’s particular elements that are specific to the cultural dress. So the gele, the hair wrap—there’s something about having your head adorned or decorated. The hairstyles in our editorials were really meant to evoke that,” Olupona says. “That’s a feature of our fashion—whether it’s in hair form or in textile, it’s the same thing. Nigerian fashion also is a way for us to ‘canoe’ relationships and connection. Looking at all of those things that Nigerian fashion is, I think of Busayo as being deeply inspired by it, but really rooted in an American tradition and aesthetic.”
If anything, Busayo is a case study in how children of the diaspora mold their personal styles. Just as she takes inspiration from the artisans of Nigeria, Olupona also looks to European and American industry giants like Diane von Furstenberg, Tracy Reese, and Jonathan Simkhai.
“I have days that I’m like, oh, I’m going through a Nigerian day in terms of how I dress—but it is always very much rooted in an American ethos, in an American aesthetic, and also for an American market, because that’s who I am,” she says. “This is where I live. As much as I still consider myself a Nigerian, I’m also very much an American. I’ve been deeply, profoundly influenced by the culture here.”
Bringing together vastly different cultures—even through fashion—is an inherently American concept, after all.
“I really believe in contemporary fashion, that kind of advanced contemporary space, like clothes that are wearable and relevant for this particular culture and moment in time,” Olupona says. “So I am definitely influenced by our fabrication. But if it was a Nigerian brand, things would be studded, things would be—I mean, they’d just be so much more over-the-top than they are. So my team in Nigeria, sometimes they think, ‘These are auntie clothes.’ ” She laughs. “It’s all for a very specific context.”
And while Busayo is a brand with mass appeal—just look at any of the women who have been seen wearing it, from journalist and activist Noor Tagouri to the Today show’s Hoda Kotb—it’s also a vessel for showing the world what Nigerian culture and fashion really are.
“We’re so in dire need of understanding each other better across the diaspora,” Olupona says. “I want [anyone] to be able to wear our clothes and understand something about our culture. I take that role very seriously, and one of my intentions with the brand is to educate people about Nigerian culture, Nigerian tradition, and the kind of deep, deep, deep wealth of culture that we have as a people—especially pre-colonialism.”
The concept of going back to one’s roots and traditions is an ethos Olupona believes could be the future for overlooked creative communities.
“My theory is that across the world, the ways that most post-colonial people are going to really make it in terms of economic development and self-reliance is to go back to these traditions,” she says, “and begin to find ways that they can really nourish their individual economies.”
Looking back at the last decade, the designer remembers the hurdles she’s overcome, but can look at them fairly fondly now. Her business has grown and scaled—a rarity for many independent clothing brands, and especially Black-owned brands—and recalling the fear she felt when first diving into creating Busayo fuels her for whatever is coming next.
“I don’t need people to know who I am. I just want a company that is economically strong and viable,” Olupona says. “I want Busayo to be lifestyle brand that we can take people from their day to their night to their home to their partner. I love being able to say we grew this brand out of Brooklyn and Lagos. The fear felt so real back then … but I always went back to a quote: ‘If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. And if you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.’ I believe that a thousand percent—we are all here to do something.”
Bianca Betancourt is the culture editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com, where she covers all things film, TV, music, and more. When she’s not writing, she loves impulsively baking a batch of cookies, re-listening to the same early-2000s pop playlist, and stalking Mariah Carey’s Twitter feed.