18 year old Bukki Ojo is and African born, London-based designer. Her self-titled label ‘BUKKI’ was formed with the intention to bring African fabrics to a new platform giving customers an almost afro meets vintage meets punk feel. She mixes an old school ’80s hip-hop flex with traditional Ankara fabrics creating retro style with an explosion of prints and colours.
Bukki has spoken of her initial desire to get onto a course at London College of Fashion but on being declined she considered taking a year out and came up with her idea to create her own label and so BUKKI was born. The SS12 collection entitled is ‘Afro’ and is proving to be very popular with popular Nigerian celebrities including Afro-Beats superstar David-O and even stylists such as that of Labyrinth. I recently attended an open mic session in Brixton, London and saw someone sporting a BUKKI vintage denim/ankara shirt and noted straight away it was one of her pieces. Now that is what I call making an impact, and the guy rocked that shirt with such flair I am sure he was asked about where he got it on many occasions that evening.
BUKKI is being quite notorious now and the label is getting out there quite a bit too. BUKKI recently landed a place on the ‘Fashion’s Finest’ catwalk during ‘London Fashion Week’ this year and the designer has appeared on Choice FM too. It appears that this label is one to keep an eye on as it has the same sense of underground interest that, if one dared, one could say that it’s the same that Wale Adeyemi had when he first came to the scene and launched his grafitti graphic fashion pieces.
Inspired by the eighties this label is very on trend, fresh and we adore the unintentional sense of upcycling she adds. Bukki talks of heading down to Brick Lane to seek vintage denim and fusing it with ankara, wax print fabric to create new pieces of fashion from old. We would love to see Bukki take this to Africa working with secondhand clothing there giving it the same sort of fun, fashion forward uniqueness but adding development and employment opportunities there too as it is a great concept.
We urge you to check it out and to pick up a piece for yourself. Don’t miss out!
The Afro Punk BUKKI Spring/Summer 2012 collection is now available to buy on ASOS Marketplace ranging from between £30-£40 you can buy from here: https://marketplace.asos.com/boutique/bukki/collection
