by Julia Pretsfelder

Amy Akudo Iheakanwa on Nigerian arts and artisans, unintentional upcycling, and the rise of her brand, Shekudo.

Amy Akudo Iheakanwa's authentic vision for slow fashion is terribly refreshing. Her brand Shekudo captures how sustainability is not one size fits all. Sometimes, the most accessible way to sustain local livelihood and the planet is through working with what you have.

Iheakanwa’s desire to shift the racist narratives we often hear about Nigeria and Africa has been a lifelong motivation, which ultimately led her to move to Lagos in 2017 to work on Shekudo full time. As she wrote in a recent Instagram post where she reflected on growing up biracial in Australia, “[My dad] taught us to be proud of our Nigerian and Australian roots, telling us that we were Nigerian royalty before we went to school most mornings. Although we technically weren’t Nigerian royalty, I now see that he was trying to instill strength and pride in us to face what may come.” She has consistently channeled this resilience into innovation and ambition. When confronted with unexpected challenges in launching her business, she has expertly balanced strategy and intuition. She aims to empower Nigerian women, shift Nigerian industry towards manufacturing and away from oil, and be a leading global producer of handmade Nigerian goods, and she will.

Her joy and spunk flow through Shekudo. I’d hate to say that this energy is infectious right now, but finding models laughing as genuinely hard as they are in Shekudo’s photoshoots would be a challenge. I first came across Shekudo on Ocelot Market, a digital artisan marketplace, where a brand I worked for was also selling. My “Jesus, this is cute,” reaction has since been echoed by my mom (the only woman I regularly socialize with in quarantine) and, more importantly, Vogue and Beyonce. The effortlessly chic, brilliantly unexpected color combinations and textures will definitely make you want to go to Lagos, which is kind of the point. Through speaking with Iheakanwa, I learned that Shekudo’s innovative path to success is, in part, a love letter to the Lagosian marketplace and its artists.

In a fashion landscape full of disingenuous #girlboss culture, finding that a designer you admire is so simultaneously cool yet down to earth is quite heartening. I can confirm that Iheakanwa’s WhatsApp messages calling you lovely and signing off with “xx” are nearly identical to Shekudo’s Instagram captions, which is wonderfully sincere.

S: You moved from Australia to Lagos, Nigeria in 2017 to work on Shekudo full time. How did you meet the artisans who you ended up working with?

A: I had come to Nigeria as a kid many, many times, but it’s always different when you end up moving to a particular place and end up learning how things go, who to speak to, how to speak to them. It was a huge cultural shock. I got in, caught up with family, and then I was on the road looking for artisans in different parts of Nigeria. My dad’s friend took me to Oyo state, a Yoruba community where they do a lot of traditional weaving. Then we went to Abia state which is a manufacturing focused part of Nigeria with more of an Igbo tribal community. It was very interesting to see who was doing what, and I was constantly testing out different people to see who I could work with and the skills that they had. When I came back to Lagos, I realized that it was going to be logistically difficult for me to work with weavers who were not based there because transport here is not so good. When you’re starting out there are so many changes that need to be made with designs and everything else. So, I started working with artisans in Lagos, and that’s what I’m still doing now.

I remember I went to one of our big leather markets here. The one Lagosians go to is called Mushin Market where there are a lot of suppliers who referred me to different shoemakers who bought from them. There were so many referrals that it was sort of a cobweb. It was a lot of trial and error, and I moved so much around Lagos to find the right people. It took a while, but we’ve got a core group and are still trying to expand.

S: After finding artisans to work with, what motivated you to make the brand eco-friendly?

A: Sustainability inevitably came on it’s own, which is wonderful because so much of the time it emerges from trying to find solutions. When you’re starting a brand the minimum order quantities manufacturers require are really, really high. My initial efforts were to use solely what we had on ground, and that was a huge cost cutter that also supported a bunch of market vendors who rely on selling all the components that make up shoes. I found a lot of things at the market, but I couldn’t find 50 good quality insoles all at once. I had to go to different sellers to find insoles and then bring them back to the workshop. Then we’d reinforce these insoles because they were all secondhand, which was really cool because they were not going to waste. We were taking them from old shoes and fixing them up.

The other thing we had to look at changing was purchasing our heels in the market. We used a particular type of block heel and pencil heel to start with. Once, the vendor who we bought from had sold all his block heels to a shoemaker in the north. I was like, “Oh god I’ve got all these orders, and now I don’t have the heel. What do I do?!” So I took the heel and went around to different carpenters to see who could actually replicate it using local wood, and they did a fantastic job. They were strong, they were sturdy, they last for years, and they create employment here using locally sourced wood. So I was like, “Cool, that’s what we’re going to do from now on. We’re going to craft it all here, try to keep our supplies local, and make whatever we can’t find.”

With leather, we also shifted into the eco-friendly basket. Nigerian goatskin leather is really high quality, and a lot of big brands such as Louis Vuitton source leather from there. Because of that, it was nearly impossible to find a seller who would supply us with a small batch of nice leather sheets that weren’t big fashion house quantities. Once again, we resorted to sourcing from the market in Lagos. I realized that the leather in the market had scratches and looked like it had been sitting in a market for five years. I found out that it was actually remnant leather picked up from these big fashion houses. Let’s say Gucci doesn’t like the way the leather is cut or has a mark on it, they send it out for resale, and people bring it back in these massive bins to Nigeria. I found I do love using remnant leather because otherwise it’s such a huge waste. It’s such a beautiful thing. We pick out the best of the best of what we can and recombine it. We tend to do a lot of patchwork in our designs because then you can do a lot more with the pieces of leather that we find then if we were to do a full bag in one color.

S: Shekudo’s specificity in sharing distinct Nigerian artisan traditions shaped by different regions and ethnic groups is narratively beautiful and powerful considering the way foreigners make sweeping generalizations when it comes to Africa. In a nation with so much artwork, how do you choose which types of artisan traditions you’d like to work with?

A: I recently realized that from such an early age I felt that I had to prove that my Dad’s Nigerian culture is wonderful, beautiful, and diverse. We’re not just kidnappers and scam artists. We have beautiful traditions that have been around for hundreds of years. I think that’s why I was drawn to weaving. It was really important for me to show as many techniques as I could through what we were producing. I had initially started Shekudo with making clothes with my friend Shetu in Sydney, but I ended up choosing accessories because I love them as well and wanted to show what we could do with leather, embroidery, silver, and bronze.

Right now I’m focusing on Aso Oke from the Yoruba tribe, but soon I want to focus on another weave like the Akwete cloth from the Igbo tribe. Akwete was used to express family crests, power, and legacy. I also incorporated nsibidi symbols into our earrings for our first collection, which was a big deal for me because a lot of people around the world don’t know that we had our own symbols and language before the English came down. Even my Dad and other Nigerians don’t know about nsibidi! It’s really the younger generations who are looking into these things and trying to establish more connectedness with their culture. 

My goal is to show that Nigerians and Africans have a lot to show in terms of our art and manufacturing. I want us to compete with other footwear brands that also focus on the handcraft technique. First, I want people to look at our shoes and say, “That’s an amazing shoe!” Then secondly, “The look and the quality is fantastic,” and thirdly they’ll be like, “What?! I didn’t know Nigerians were involved in shoemaking.” It’s a great conversation starter. When I went to Paris Fashion Week, people were shocked to hear about Nigerian shoe and jewelry making. Our jewelry techniques are so different from Kenya or Niger, which are very well known for their jewelry.

S: Have you noticed any big fashion brands appropriating Nigerian artisan work?

A: I’ve seen a lot of appropriation happening. This happens with globalization, but it’s important to be mindful and appreciative. Give credit where credit is due and don’t just say, “It’s a Nigerian cloth.” Credit the particular region or the people you worked with who helped you come across that idea. Big brands can do research into the techniques that they are incorporating into their designs, and they need to reinvest into these communities. Don’t come in, pay artisans this meager allowance and then sell a garment for 3,000 USD. My prices are kind of high, but that’s because we pay our artisans well. We make sure they negotiate and are happy with what they get. They get paid per piece, and it’s a good fair wage.

S: Black and Indigenous people of color are on the front lines of the climate crisis. Has climate change impacted the Nigerian communities you work with?

A: We’ve always had rainy and dry seasons, but the rainy seasons are definitely longer and more sporadic as a result of climate change. It is very difficult to do anything when it’s raining here because the flooding happens within minutes. A lot of our markets are outside, so people can’t access them or function normally without them. It impacts the livelihoods of so many people here.

S: Some of environmental racism stems from second hand clothing being tossed away by Americans or Europeans, ending up in the global South, and disrupting the local artisan craft industry because it’s cheaper. You seem to have worked around that really wonderfully through upcycling used materials from the marketplace, but have you noticed artisans being put out of business in Nigeria?

A: We do see a lot of second hand clothing from the UN or missions who drop off donations and so forth from America. I wish I could take a photo of all these buff men wearing secondhand t-shirts that say, “I’m a goddess,” but you’re very correct. They do flood the market, and you see all these sellers with second hand clothes. People flock to those because they’re super duper cheap. But there’s a full business of people ending up selling donated stuff instead of giving it away as intended. Although, I think Nigerians have a nice balance. People still work with local tailors when it comes to making made-to-measure pieces.

When it comes to the weaving industry, in the 90s and early 2000s, the prime minister’s wife started wearing imported fabric from China as a headwrap. Normally, Yoruba women will wear an Aso Oke headwrap, but this imported damask material from China became very trendy. This put a huge chunk of weavers out of business. They couldn’t support themselves or their families because many people decided they weren’t going to wear Aso Oke anymore because it’s outdated. It’s coming back into fashion now, but when powerful people support importing cheap materials, wear it, and start it as a fashion trend, it puts local artisans out of work. With shoe making, we get a lot of shoes imported. The quality is very, very bad, but people need to get by and can’t afford the shoemakers. Everything’s imported here, even toothpicks! It’s ridiculous. we’re really trying to push shopping and producing locally and becoming the next big thing for our own people here. We can do it. We’ve got the manpower.

S: You just posted a sneak peak of your new collection, Her Lake (Odo mmiri ya)!! What inspired that collection? Were you able to try anything new in the process of creating it?

A: Yeah I did! We’re actually working with a new kind of Aso Oke weave that’s a very funky box print.. I’m also working with bronze, which I’m really excited about. I usually work with Nigerian silver as opposed to Nigerian bronze,  which is so, so special. We are historically known for our bronze work in the form of figures, bowls, and sculptures. Those are actually being done in Benin City, which is a few hours outside of Lagos. It’s a very traditional craft that cannot be done outside of their village. I’m also using recycled glass for the earrings, which I’m really excited about. Right now they are super heavy, so we’re trying to work out how to reduce the weight without impacting the aesthetic. We’re also continuing to work with recycled leather.

The inspiration behind this collection is old Lagos. It was so regal, and we still are now. We’re a very proud people. In the late 70s, early 80s, there was a huge stream of Nigerians who wore these amazing suits in rich oranges, navys, army greens, reds, mustards. I love how that time period looked, the structure of the buildings, the colors, so it’s definitely a late 70s, early 80s funk collection. The photoshoot will definitely have babes with old school afros.

S: One of my favorite thinkers in fashion is Kerby Jean-Raymond of Pyer Moss, who has written brilliantly about resisting being tokenized as a Black designer (“My reason [for avoiding group panels] is that so many...just lump us all in, ‘Black in Fashion’ or ‘Diversity & Inclusion’ when the reality is my family is vastly different, making strides in every category ...But instead they make us speak all together in the commonality of our blackness...”). I always try to keep those words in mind when working as a white fashion journalist. Particularly given the reckoning on racism in the industry currently, how have you been feeling?

A: I’m often asked if I view myself as a global brand, as a Nigerian brand, or as an African brand, and it’s tough. With a lot of huge, fast fashion brands, they all identify where they started out even though they now have a global reach with hundreds of stores. With African brands, people have only just started taking us seriously. I can’t think of how to say that properly, but that’s how I feel. When people think of African brands, they just think of mudcloth and ankara. I actually used to work with ankara a long time ago when I was making clothes, but I will never do that again with our new accessories because then we are pigeonholed. As a Black designer, you’re just not taken as seriously as other emerging brands. A lot of us struggle just to get noticed because “Made in Africa” means we’re focused on handicraft only, and we are because we’re trying to show what we have to the world. But, why does that mean we can’t be considered luxury? Why aren’t we put up there with other brands that are kind of doing the same thing in Spain or in Italy and so forth? They’re viewed as a global brand, but we are just 150% looked at differently. It’s really hard. I want to be a Nigerian brand because we are Nigerian, but I want to have a global reach. I want us to be on the same playing field as everyone else.

S: Do you have any advice for aspiring Black designers on working in the fashion industry?

A: What I have to say for other Black designers working in the industry is just stay true to yourself and find ways to connect with a Black audience. For me, my audience in Nigeria and Africa is my main priority. I created my shoes for women in Nigeria and across Africa to say, “This is my shoe brand.” Our prices are not as friendly for the everyday shoe owner here, and we’re working on a diffusion brand that has lower prices in the next coming year. I do always say to other Black designers to design for your people as well in mind because we will support you, but also design for the rest of the world. You have to balance making it for your local squad and reaching an international audience.

Just create what you want for yourself and live by that. Other advice is, keep your head up. It can be really hard, but don’t look at it as a challenge or a failure. Look at it as a way to change your strategy.

S: You articulate your goals for Shekudo beautifully, “The brand intends to establish a global Shekudo sisterhood, promoting a sense of caring, empowerment and celebration among women across the globe, allowing its wearers to push boundaries, stand out and know that their Shekudo item is responsibly made with traceable origins,” How can we support you and your artisans?

A: We’ve been really blessed because we’ve had a lot of new customers coming along and a growing consumer base in the U.S. that’s been very supportive. I’m so grateful for that. I genuinely feel so much joy in my heart whenever I see a new order come in or get to know a new customer. We’ve just had so many mentions and articles. I couldn’t be happier. Things will grow.

The best way to support us aside from making an order is to share. A lot of people don’t know about these emerging brands coming out of South America, Asia, Africa who have so much to offer because they’re so concentrated on brands that already dominate the fashion industry because those brands can afford to pay for this amazing press and PR. For us newer brands, we can’t really do that, but we’re trying as hard as we can. You can share us with family or friends and also research what brands like us are trying to do. We’re actually taking five dollars from every sale to put it towards training at-risk Nigerian women in shoemaking programs to add about four girls to our team. We want to give them a skill that might help them with finding employment. We’re trying to build our female force. As people support us, they support this training and empowering women. It’s a really nice 360 model.