Inside Mowalola’s energetic homage to punk
In light of the climate crisis, we’ve begun to re-examine our relationship to fashion. As we realise the environmental ills of fast fashion, the maxim “buy less, buy better” has become common-place. Consequently, single-wear styles are being shunned in favour of pieces with greater longevity as we make a greater effort to acknowledge the labour and resources that go into our retail purchases.
Perhaps as a result of this shift in mindset, recent months have seen a trend of emerging designers placing their work within a gallery setting. Claire Barrow, Graces Wales Bonner and now Mowalola Ogulensi are some of the designers positioning their work as wearable art rather than solely clothes. Rejecting the idea that garments should chase trends, rather than start them, or that they should be utilitarian, rather than inspiring, this approach champions the subversive potential of fashion.
Ogulensi, in particular, is pushing forward new ways of conceptualising what fashion can do. Showing her BA graduate collection in 2017, she’s since gone on to show multiple collections at LFW under the Fashion East umbrella and garnered celebrity fans in the likes of Skepta, Solange and Megan Thee Stallion. There’s even an Instagram account @peoplewearingmowalola dedicated to her fashion fans. Her cult popularity is due to a signature aesthetic inspired by Nigerian psychedelic rock, sexuality and the potent unpredictability of punk — but it’s also to do with how this look is put to work.
In interviews about her work, Ogulensi has stated that her menswear creations are a lesson in breaking stereotypes and allow the wearer to embody more diverse definitions of masculinity. For example, in conversation with High Snobiety she said: “With my clothes, I want to show men in a different way to the way they are perceived, especially black men.” Her work holds up figures like Prince or André 3000 as figures who embody multifaceted versions of masculinity “graceful”, “soft” but still “masculine, all in one”.
Translating this open-ended approach to gender to the conventions of the gallery space, her solo exhibition Silent Madness breaks down the hierarchies between fashion, film, music and art for an acid trip of a gallery experience. Alongside a short film and photographic stills, the exhibition’s centre-piece is an androgynous “band” of mannequins wearing her psychedelic tie-dye designs. Breaking the thick silence that normally characterises the viewing experience, visitors to the gallery are able to participate in their own silent rave. Stepping into the gallery, they’re offered headphones through which they can listen to a soundtrack of tunes created in response to Mowalola’s work by the likes of Joey LaBeija, Yves Tumor and Shygirl.
NOW has a recent tradition of showing work from designers, with exhibitions from the likes of Molly Goddard and Charles Jeffrey, but few have the immediate impact of Silent Madness. Not only does it affirm the high-art value of fashion, but it also affirms the importance of the gallery space as an incubator for new and novel ways of appreciating culture.
‘Silent Madness’ is on show at NOW Gallery, London until 19 January, 2020.
