Torisheju: "It Wasn't Meant to Become a Brand"

Torishéju Dumi’s design practice centers on “the in between,” where strength coexists with vulnerability, exposure with protection, and softness with discipline. She links tension to lived experience, present whether named or not. Her Nigerian Brazilian background, shaped by northwest London and upbringing in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, informs both her design choices and her understanding of the world. Her work and language hold ease and hybridity through multiple cultural references and emotional registers without reducing them to a single narrative. She studied at London College of Fashion and completed a master’s at Central Saint Martins in 2021, interning in Antwerp. Her capsule collection Mami Wata used deadstock materials to mimic submerged fabric motion, and her Paris Fashion Week debut featured Naomi Campbell and Paloma Elsesser.

"“I think tension just comes from lived experience,” she says. “It's always there, whether you name it or not.” Dumi is Nigerian Brazilian, born in northwest London and raised in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire: it's a layered background that has informed not only how she designs but how she understands the world. There's an ease and hybridity in both her work and her language - different cultural references, emotional registers and ways of being coexist without being flattened into a single narrative."

"“I made those pieces after work and on weekends,” Dumi says. “At the time I had a job on the costume course at the London College of Fashion and I loved it - but I also wanted to find something to do during my own time, because I wanted to keep on making. So I made those pieces at home, in my kitchen. It wasn't meant to become a brand.”"

"Her first collection, a capsule titled Mami Wata, was released in early 2023. Its name was taken from that of a water spirit of Nigerian and South American folklore and it featured sculptural pieces made from deadstock material designed to mimic the motion of fabric submerged underwater. Naomi Campbell and Paloma Elsesser walked in her Paris Fashion Week debut, held later that year, opening and closing the show, respectively."

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