#SuzyPod: Duro Olowu’s Artistic Heart
23 JUNE 2020 for Vogue.co.uk
In Episode Nine of “Creative Conversations”, Suzy discovers how the designer navigates his many creative passions
The London-based designer, Duro Olowu, works at the crossroads of fashion, art and culture. The wonder of Duro is that he has developed himself as an art curator as well as a creative fashion artist. The two fit hand in glove. He is able to express himself artistically through his fashion creations and through selecting art for museum exhibitions.
The greatest skill of this remarkable Nigerian-born creator lies in his delicate, artistic mix of joyous patterns. In his elegant embrace, the African influences come alongside super-sophisticated silks created for Parisian haute couture. Together they express the originality and elegance of exceptional fashion art, so beautifully displayed in his London boutique.
Duro’s instinctive love of fabric stems from his childhood in Lagos, where he lived with his Nigerian father and Jamaican mother. He is married to Thelma Golden, the Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, and his own exhibition, ‘Duro Olowu: Seeing Chicago’ – combining photography, painting, sculpture and film with his own work – is currently on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.
Female visitors to the exhibition opening in February 2020 were dressed almost entirely in a rainbow coalition of his designs. He is too discreet to reveal his famous clients, but we know Michelle Obama heads the list.
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