Tina Akerele is the founder of Kkerelé, a Nigerian design studio in the 'slow fashion' tradition currently exploring simple yet bold forms in hand-crafted footwear design. Featured in the likes of Vogue and I am Schick magazine, and ranking high amongst innovative small fashion businesses such as This is Us and I am Isigo, Kkerelé is carving a new and exciting space in the fashion industry.

For Akerele, her designs are wearable art. She cares deeply about revitalising old indigenous design practices and partnering with local artisans and craft industries. Building a business out of her art practice has required nimbleness around strategy and an unquestionable commitment to her own instincts and taste. “Do what is from your heart,” she says, “the clients will come. Someone told me the other day that no one owns just one pair of Kkerelés.” AMAKA caught up with Akerele over Zoom in the middle of a hectic Wednesday full of Kkerelé-related errands.

It is such a pleasure to speak with you after years of Instagram-loving. How would you tell the origin story of Kkerelé?

Growing up, art and design were innate inclinations for me. I knew from early on that I was an artist and fashion was a sort of escapism for me. Going to uni is usually a breakthrough period: freedom from your parents (and I grew up in a very, very, very conservative household). You get to look inwards to discover what you really enjoy doing and I found myself gravitating towards fashion styles people found unconventional. But one day someone walked up to me and said ‘Oh, nice shoes’ and I remember feeling like finally, someone gets it.Immediately after law school, I moved to Lagos because it is the centre of the fashion, commerce and art industries in Nigeria, even though it was not the best vibe match for me as I live and breathe slowness. I was so consumed with fear because I did not know anyone in Lagos and there are a lot of gatekeepers in all these scenes. In my first months in Lagos, I worked with a law firm and later in the legal department of a microfinance bank. At the end of 2017, I was really depressed and knew I was not doing what I needed to do with my life, so I quit my job. In March 2018, I launched my first design. The name of the brand comes from my surname ‘Akerele’ which means ‘small but mighty/great’.

It has been four years now, how has Kkerelé evolved since then?

There has been so much growth in business strategy, quality, capacity and brand coherence.Thanks to the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship program in 2019 and a Seedstar mentorship this year, I have made key changes in Kkerelé’s brand strategy and operations. I recently hired an operational team, I have an admin assistant, and yet it feels like there is always more work to be done.With my brand, I used to just put images on my social media and website, I was not really telling my story verbally. Because I was the only one doing social media, I was okay with my brand being perceived as somewhat mysterious, because I can not personally handle all that energy and interaction. But when you don’t tell your story, people are going to do that for you and will get it wrong often.On the production side, quality control has also evolved. In the beginning, I was working with artisans at their site in Mushin, and with such distance, you don’t really have control over their quality of work. But now we have an in-house studio and I bring artisans to work here. You can see the difference; 2019 Kkerelé shoes are not 2021 Kkerelé shoes.We are expanding in amazing ways. We now see ourselves as a locally-produced brand with a global customer base. 

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On the Kkerelé website, it says that “we are an iterative and experience-first practice… our work references ideas, designs, events, artists, and art movements of previous generations.” Tell us more about how you run Kkerelé: how do you decide what works and what does not? How do you conduct your research?

My design practice is experimental and fluid. When I started Kkerelé, I had no prior experience in the fashion industry or business (and I would not necessarily advise this to others because I made many easily avoidable mistakes). But this meant that I was not mindful of the industry’s rules such as seasons and schedules. I led at my own pace and created my own rules. I know when I like a design and if I do not like the work, if I do not get that creative orgasm from it, I will not put it out.I am a visually sensitive person, so everywhere is my library. My mind translates everything, from objects to colours, into design idea[s]. 

With colours for example, in the beginning of Kkerelé, I used to be obsessed with peach because it meant uncertainty for me. Soon after, it was orange because orange to me meant momentum, attunement and growth in confidence I spend a ridiculous amount of time on the internet (Instagram and Pinterest, especially) gathering inspiration and honing my own aesthetic sensibility. I also draw from vintage designs, my past experiences and memories. For example, the shoe ‘Liro’ is a re-interpretation of shoes my father had when I was younger. I also play with the idea of opposites: my designs try to find balance or an in-between.

Your brand is heavily rooted in the ‘slow fashion’ tradition due to your commitment to sustainability. Africa is the most vulnerable continent to climate crises, despite its low contribution to global warming. We even reuse other continents’ waste, partly due to economic conditions. And so, often, I find a mismatch between the global sustainability discourse and African realities. As an African producer, what does sustainability mean to you?

The sustainability that makes sense to me is slowness in production and consumption. With production, I have considered moving away from leather because of animal killing, but the only alternative here in Lagos is synthetic leather which is plastic and more harmful. I have also considered fabric but it doesn’t have a long life span like leather. We continue to explore options but right now, we source our leather from Mushin. The leather tanneries in Kano export their leather to big global brands like Louis Vuitton, and those brands send off-cuts and leftovers back to Nigeria, which is what we buy from Mushin. We make-to-order and even as we expand, I never want to get to a point where we are mass-producing. We have lost on investments because of this, but I do not want to be part of the environmental problem that we have in the fashion industry.

I heard someone talk about a beautiful brand and they said they bought a pair of that brand’s shoes but won’t wear them. Why would I buy something to not wear it? With consumption, I am very intentional about the marketing we do because I am disinterested in hyper-consumerism. I do not want people being bullied by my ads to just buy something. Buying my shoes is not enough for me, I need you to connect with the shoes on a deeper level for their beauty and functionality. I see my shoes as wearable art and I have been able to create the kind of audience that genuinely appreciates art around my brand. 

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What have been the most challenging and most rewarding aspects of this journey?

The most rewarding is that I get the highest level of satisfaction from just being able to create. People DM me daily about appreciating my work and that is surreal. I enjoy collaborating with other artists and artisans, learning from them and teaching them, and building community.

The biggest challenge has been accessing labour. The process of craftsmanship requires slowness and time. People are hungry and want faster money. A lot of younger artisans do not take pride in the work like the older ones I find. Training new artisans as the brand expands and managing the current team takes a lot of work. Traditional craftsmanship is slowly dying and I dream of running a leatherwork training program for young people, with a special focus on women. Since I started Kkerelé, I have met only two female artisans and I find it a lot easier to work with women.

What would you say is the major contribution you are making to the West African fashion and design scene?

When I started, people used to come up to me like “Oh, I didn’t know it was a Nigerian brand.” One of my big goals is to change how people perceive African brands, to say: African design does not have to look a certain way. And to inspire people to do great work, to set their own standards.

Who or what in the African design scene currently excites you?

This Is Us is changing the narrative we tell ourselves in Nigeria about locally sourced material. I know how hard it is to source materials locally and they are making more people appreciate the capacity we have in this country.