For spring 2027, Nkwo Onwuka drew inspiration from her nephew’s 40-day road trip from Amsterdam across 13 countries to her village in Southeastern Nigeria.
The collection, titled Journey to Less, “is all about systems,” said Onwuka. Her goal is to create sustainable solutions that reduce waste and shift our relationship with upcycled fashion, whether it’s a system that allows people to turn their unwanted garments into new designs and silhouettes, or an institution that allows for innovations such as reengineering denim to resemble knitwear. She calls it: “Reverse retail. You send your old things to us and we make it into something new. We’re just trying to get people to use what’s in their wardrobes instead of throwing it away and it goes to landfill,” she explained.
Throughout the collection, upcycled denim was converted into dresses and skirts; several indigo looks were produced locally in Nigeria’s dyeing pits. Blazers were repurposed, and shirts with lattice details were inspired by the mapping system used during her nephew’s travels. She also worked on introducing more commercial pieces. “We need to take it in a direction that makes sense to everyone, not just [feature] pieces that are so artisanal that you’re too scared to wear them,” she said.
Several of the pieces featured the new brand emblem. It’s a desert bug, a creature known for extracting moisture from the air and turning it into water that it uses to hydrate. “It’s living in the harshest environment, but finds a way to survive from nothing. And I feel like this is also our story,” she said.
