id004: Tega Akinola
Twenty-three year old, Nigerian designer Tega Anilokahas has consistently delivered conceptual projects with recycling, reuse, and reinvention at the centrefold of her work. The work of a Gemini, her work is playful, colourful, and balances an equality of soft materials and technicals objects. London based, Tega’s art continues define the creative sphere of Gen-Z and her creative approach is sustainable way of thinking is the future of fashion and design.
Tega Akinola
How would you describe your personal style in five words? Does this reflect in the outputs of your work?
Colourful, comfortable, textural, varying, whatever-I-like. I feel that my personal style doesn’t have a big influence on my work, but I guess some things like colour and texture are reflected in it.
Talk to us about your process from bringing a technical sketch to life. Do you digitise your drawings before you bring them to life in physical form?
I sketch with pencil and paper, so they’re not very technical; I just prefer it that way, but I do want to learn and start using CAD as well. The sketch is just an initial idea to express the abstract concept in my mind into something that can be translated into real life. So often, the finished designs are quite different, and I don’t stick too much to the original idea. But the overall concept is still there. And I like to see the genesis of a project and how the item changed over the process.
You have repurposed cables, fleece fabrics and other materials into contemporary fashion pieces. Where did the ambition for this derive from? What sparked the first concepts?
I’ve been repurposing since when I was younger to revamp the old clothes in my wardrobe. But working with old or waste materials to create fashion pieces came about because I wanted to start doing more creative projects but didn’t necessarily have the money (nor need) to buy new materials. So, I just sourced second-hand, which also lends itself to the creative process well – thinking critically and outside of the box and going through the process of deconstructing and reconstructing.
Where do you look for inspiration for your designs? It almost feels authentic to London with the mix of street and sophistication.
It sounds very cliché, but a lot of my inspiration comes from everyday life and ordinary things. Like the work I’ve done with cables, that’s an everyday object that possibly only looks extraordinary because it’s being used in a completely different way. Perhaps there’s a sort of fascination in seeing normal things used in art and appreciating the beauty of them then. Inspiration particular to London for me would be the architecture – there are a lot of cool and beautiful buildings.
Where do you source your materials from? Have you repurposed materials more than once?
Depop, eBay, Vinted, charity/vintage shops… There are so many accessible places to source second-hand materials nowadays. I often don’t repurpose materials more than once – only when I’m not too happy with what I made that I use it for another project.
Do you consider wearability when designing? Would this limit your creativity?
Not necessarily and depending on the objective of the project. If I considered wearability when designing a conceptual project, yes, it probably would limit my creativity. Because instead of focusing solely on the superficial design of something, I must consider the engineering too, which isn’t really my forte. That’s not to say some of the pieces I’ve created can’t be adapted for functionality at some point. But I don’t believe all items are meant to be wearable anyway, they can just simply be enjoyed as art pieces.
How has social media had an impact on your career as a young designer?
Social media has played a big part in my career. If I never started publishing my creative projects online as a hobby, I would probably be in a different stage of life right now. So social media has had a positive impact on my career, and although there’s downsides to it (as with everything), it’s been overall very positive for me.
What can we expect from Tega in the new year?
New and different releases coming out, and exciting projects coming to fruition
Follow @tegaakinola on Instagram.
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