The studio.
A four-woman atelier in Yaba, Lagos. Two drops a year. Fabric sourced along the Cotonou road.
Cut small. Worn slowly.
Kessa was founded in the harmattan of 2022 by a designer who was tired of clothes that arrived once and left the same season. The first drop was six adire dresses cut on a borrowed table in a Yaba back room. All six sold within a week, and every one is still in someone's wardrobe.
The atelier today is four women — a designer, two finishers, and a woman who sources fabric along the Cotonou road. We work in adire, hand-woven brocade, dyed Lagos linen and a silk blend hand-loomed in Osogbo. Nothing arrives in a container.
We release two collections a year. Each piece is numbered on the label — 03 / 47 means the third piece of a run of forty-seven. Once a run sells through it is not made again. This is the only way we know to keep the work honest.
A dress ought to outlast the season that made it.
What we hold to.
Small batch
Runs of 40 to 60 pieces, numbered by hand. When a piece sells through it is not restocked — the tag on the next dress will be a new drop.
Hand-finished
Every seam is finished by hand, every label stitched by name. It is slower and it costs more, and it is why the pieces last.
Made in Lagos
Cut in Yaba, sourced along the Cotonou road, dyed and hand-loomed by weavers we work with directly. The whole chain is close to home.
I started Kessa in a back room in Yaba because I could not find a dress I wanted to wear twice. Everything since has been an argument with fast — that a dress ought to outlast the season that made it, that a seam ought to be pressed rather than fused, that a woman ought to know the name of the person who finished her hem.